Recent Komodo postings of Dr. Bryan Fry

[venomdoc]

Smy_749, key here is that it is nothing exceptional in regards to types or levels. A good lab could document as many in the mouth of family dogs or lions.

Bacteria-as-a-weapon is evolutionarily implausible since it would act too slow to be under any sort of selection pressure. If water buffalo had never been introduced to the islands, then this enchanting fairy tale about komodos selectively blooming bacteria in their mouth never would have been dreamed up in the malaria-fever restless nights of Auffenberg. He proposed the idea based upon a fundamental misreading of the biological reality rather than recognising the artificial situation for what it was. Introduced water buffalo trapped on small islands with only stagnant water holes has as much to do with reality as catapulting cows to great white sharks.