Komodo Dragons (Varanus komodoensis)

[Paleosuchus]

Quote:I think that you are confused about past posts, and certainly words like "inaccurate and not well based" or "false" are to harsh. Please, let me explain to you the correct statements made in past posts. 

If you take a look to post No. 2, 7 and 9, you can see that my conclusions were based in the study of Dr Auffenberg, published in his book of 1981 "The Behavioral Ecology of the Komodo Monitor", which as far I know, seems to be the most complete study of this animal in the past century. In that study, the average weight of the largest males, captured by him, was of 47 kg (n=12), with the heaviest been of 54 kg. More recently, the heaviest male reported by Jessop et al. (no date) was of 81.5 kg, without apparent stomach content. So, an average large male should weight between 40-50 kg, in the best case, based in the study of 1981, but the new figures reported by Jessop et al. (no date) suggest that modern male Komodo dragons could be heavier than in the 80's. In fact, @Pckts in post No. 8 already stated that an average male would be between 70-80 kg. 

No, no, i read your statements fine. They aren't too harsh of words, but don't take it personally. I read auffenberg's book too( i have an open access copy i you'd like); Auffenberg's sample of 12 displays no segregation between sexes or age  in his small sample so to definitely state "males average 40-50kg" in the face of that is in fact not well based.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

As you can see, No "average weight of males was 47kg" is displayed in the section about weight, what you have is a mixed sample that includes smaller, recently sexually matured(~attained at ~1.7m TBL, one animal had a total body length of 2.2m) and/ or females, nevermind the fact that twelve is far too small a sample to give anything super definitive. In regards to my email Jessop is referring to what most adult males will weigh with the 65-80kg range, not the largest, as i believe he had made that distinction in his email. Anything in excess of 80kg is what is to be expected for the largest of males, at least this is what the data indicates. Reply