Giants and dwarfs – a real life fairy tale

Indonesia offers an abundance of reasons to be fascinated by the raw, natural world; tri-coloured volcanic lakes, still-practicing head hunting tribes, flame-furred cousins of men bounding through the jungle. One of the most fascinating biological examples exists here in Flores – Island Gigantism and Insular Dwarfism.

http://www.liabarrettphotography.com

‘The Island Rule’, developed by J Bristol Foster in 1964, states that insular species, i.e. those found on islands, are prone to size changes throughout the evolutionary process. Large animals have a propensity to shrink in size compared to their mainland counterparts whereas small species grow to giant proportions! As a general rule, carnivores are inclined to become dwarfed and rodents and birds tend towards gigantism.

While there are a number of exceptions and one definitive rule has not yet been developed to explain these size changes, there is a simple rationalization. Species which exhibit dwarfism are often subject to a reduction in food source and therefore possible malnutrition and stunting of growth. Smaller size has advantages such as hiding from predators in a smaller area and the ability to cope with stress better. Gigantism seems to be a direct result of a lack of predators in the island environment. Without threat and with the availability of a constant food source, some species are free to grow beyond their normal realms. Advantages of this are the ability to survive harsher conditions due to higher energy stores, use of intimidation in herbivores which would have used escape tactics previously and larger range and therefore food source.

There are fascinating examples of this all over the world, maybe the most famous being the Dodo – the extinct flightless bird from Madagascar. However, as man has evolved along with the introduction of other predators such as cats and dogs, many of these species no longer exist. Flores, situated within eastern Indonesia, and the many smaller islands surrounding this has an above average amount of giants and dwarfs. Here are a few examples:

Flores Giant Rat - measuring 41–45 cm (1.3-1.5 ft) with a tail length is 33–70 cm, at least twice the size of the more familiar Brown Rat. The Flores Giant Rat can still be found in Flores today, although it is listed on the IUCN Red List as ‘Near Threatened’.
Homo floresiensis – nicknamed ‘The Hobbit’, Home floresiensis co-existed with our species until 12,000 years ago.

Komodo Dragon - is the largest living land lizard at over 3m long. The Komodo Dragon is a rare example of island gigantism in a carnivore and harks back to the dinosaur days when reptiles ruled the world

Flores flightless stork – Remains of this stork that stood at an estimated 1.8m tall were found in the same cave as the Homo floresiensis. Some theories suggest that the two species hunted each other – hobbit vs. stork!

Dwarf stegodonts – Effectively a pygmy elephant which was endemic to Flores until extinction around 12,000 years ago. The smallest of the species had a 300k body weight and was smaller than a water buffalo. There are theories which suggest that the Komodo Dragon grew to such epic proportions by feeding on the stegodonts.

With its lack of any large mammalian predators, Flores was the perfect location for the development of island gigantism and insular dwarfism. The extinction of many of these species seems to coincide with the arrival of modern man and possibly a large volcanic eruption on Bali, although this is yet to be proved.

It is possible to still bring yourself close to these evolutionary marvels. When visiting Flores why not go to the caves where the remains of ‘The Flores Hobbit’ were found, search out the Flores Giant Rat (make sure you bring plenty of cheese) and go searching for Dragons on one of Wicked’s Komodo liveaboard or day trip boats.­­

Check out this BBC article for more info on the Flores Hobbit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22166736

-Wicked Komodo

Komodo Liveaboard trip report - July 2nd, 2012

Time flies when you're having fun, and we are into July already! We've had some fantastic trips so far this season, and this last trip has been no exception. 5 guests from the last 3 days stayed on the Jaya for another 3 days of diving, and we were joined by Sabrina, Stefan & Marcel from Switzerland, Stefano from Italy, and Christian, Jillian, Fiona, Becs & Seb from Australia.

These 3 days saw us circle through the National Park for 8 dives, finishing up at Rinca. We started in the North of the park, and made a check dive at the Passage, a beautiful dive site in between the islands of Komodo and Gili Lawa Darat. Lovely reef to start and make sure everyone's happy in the water, followed by a drift through the channel, plenty of fusiliers, sweetlips and snapper around.
Time for a beach visit, and we made our way onto Komodo to chill out on the beach, wander up to the viewpoint for panoramic shots across the islands, and get rid of some of the rubbish.

Castle Rock was our 2nd dive of the day, always a fishy dive site and this time was no exception, plenty of white tip and grey reef sharks, and massive schools of banner fish, surgeonfish, fusiliers and trevallies swirling round us as we hovered and watched the action. 2 fab dives already, so we headed to the Cauldron for a bit of a drift dive, there wasn't too strong a current, which meant we could really enjoy all of the stunning orange tree soft corals along the walls of the dive site.

Another delicious dinner served up by Jos and Abdul, and the rest of the evening was spent chatting & relaxing on the sun deck. Fiona, Jillian & Seb had some homework to do for their fish identification dive the next morning, so they spent some time figuring out how they were going to know which fish wa switch tomorrow!

Day 2 of the Komodo liveaboard, Fiona's birthday, many happy returns! We got off to a good start with a lovely dive at Crystal Bommie, thankfully we had a rising tide so we could explore the western side of the dive site without much current, beautiful pinnacles covered in soft and hard corals, a little black tip cruising round, and big schools of sweetlips. Moving down into the centre of the park we dived the northern side of Batu Bolong, a huge pinnacle in the middle of the strait, 2 big hawksbill turtles graced us with their presence, as well as lionfish and scorpionfish galore, and many beautifully coloured anthias all over the reef.

Tatawa Kecil next, huge schools of red snapper around the overhangs and rocks of the western side of this island, unfortunately the current changed direction which led to a shorter dive for us, but it was a fishy one nonetheless!

Night dive at Wainilu, first night dive for Seb doing his Advanced Adventurer course, and a chance for some muck diving. Full moon led to a slightly brighter night dive than usual so not so much bioluminescence, but the dusky skies were ideal lighting to search for the macro things, and plenty of cool critters were spotted, loads of different crustaceans, and a little yellow clown anglerfish was a really nice find for people as well.

Final day of the trip, and our last dive was at Tengah, and we didn't want to finish the dive! There was so much to see, and the corals at this dive site are beautiful, really healthy stag horn coral reef across the plateau, and when you weren't looking at coral, plenty of marine life to watch, including schools of bumphead parrotfish, chevron barracuda and, for some of our lucky divers, an inquisitive devil ray.

All the diving done, time just for breakfast, and then a trek on Rinca to search for Komodo dragons. The dragons are going into mating season at the moment, so can be a tad harder to spot, since the females are off digging burrows to hide their eggs, and the males are trying to find the females! But it was a successful walk through the forest with a couple of sightings, and there were some dragons resting in the shade around the ranger offices for photo opportunities afterwards.

Back to the Jaya, and time to say our goodbyes as we make our way back to Labuan Bajo! A fantastic trip, with a great group of people :)

Come Dive Komodo with Wicked Diving

Komodo Dragon Sighting...

Pint size dragon hunters

On one fine Friday morning in June, a troop of fearless buccaneers took to the seas in their fine vessel Diana for a one day trip, in search of a fearsome beastie – the Komodo dragon

The team of explorers were Alena and Thomas, who were joining the Jaya for a liveaboard and had just completed their SSI Advanced Adventurer course with Wicked (congrats guys!), DMT Calle, Instructor Jo and a couple of pint sized heros – Omi and Yana.

Omi and Yana have recently joined the Wicked team in Komodo as interns. They study in a nearby tourism and hospitality school in Ruteng, called Swakarsa. As part of their education, to help with their future employment and to improve their English skills, the students of the school are advised to complete internships in the area. Omi and Yana have been helping out in the shop in Labuan Bajo, purchasing supplies, assisting with equipment, meeting our guests and they have also played an integral part in ensuring that the Jaya is stocked up and ready to go for the liveaboard trips. 

Also, not to be overlooked, are the big wide smiles and sense of fun which is always present in Indonesian culture.

Although Omi and Yana both live in the nearby town of Ruteng, neither of them had visited the fabled dragons, so we thought it was time for them to have a day trip away from Labuan Bajo. They also seemed to be just the right size for dragon food – we jest, we jest!

During the day Omi and Yana learnt that the dragons can run up to 18 km per hour, that the baby dragons live in trees and eat geckos until they are 1 year old to avoid being eaten by the bigger, scarier adults, dragons can live for 50 years and would have no qualms in taking on a water buffalo should the situation present itself.

We were lucky enough to see a number of dragons large and small on the trek and also were lucky enough to witness a large water buffalo grazing just metres away from us. All in all it was a fun and educational day for all and luckily we all returned in one piece.