Did Komodo dragons evolve to eat pygmy elephants?
Nature 326: 832.
All the large mammal species on which Komodo Dragons now prey were introduced to Flores by humans after BC 3000. What did they eat before then? During the Pleistocene, Flores supported two species of now-extinct elephants, the small Stegodon trigonocephalus florensis and the pygmy S. sompoensis (also called S. timoriensis). Hence Auffenberg's suggestion' that the Dragons evolved as a specialized predator on pygmy elephants, formerly the sole large prey available on Flores.
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