Komodo (island) and Botanical Gardens in Bogor, Java. The records that Ouwens made are the first reliable documentation of details about what is now called the Komodo dragon (or Komodo monitor). Ouwens was keen to obtain additional samples. He recruited hunters who killed two dragons measuring 3.1 metres and 3.35 metres as well as capturing two pups, each measuring less than one metre. Ouwens carried out studies on the samples and concluded that the Komodo dragon was not a flame-thrower but was a type of monitor lizard. Research results were published in 1912. Ouwens named the giant lizard "Varanus komodoensis". Realizing the
Dragon Island Dragon Island Dragon Island is a privately owned island off the northeast coast of New Zealand's Great Barrier Island, located to the northeast of Auckland. The island provides Harataonga Bay on Great Barrier Island with shelter from easterly and southeasterly winds by blocking the bay from Pacific storms. The island is in relatively calm water, sheltered by the larger Rakitu Island to the north. It was once farmed but is now unpopulated and has reverted to scrub. Dragon Island is also a name sometimes given (quixotically) to a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, a little more than one km