Page "Komodo dragon" Paragraph 39

Komodo dragons were first documented by Europeans in 1910, when rumors of a " land crocodile " reached Lieutenant van Steyn van Hensbroek of the Dutch colonial administration.

Widespread notoriety came after 1912, when Peter Ouwens, the director of the Zoological Museum at Bogor, Java, published a paper on the topic after receiving a photo and a skin from the lieutenant, as well as two other specimens from a collector.

Later, the Komodo dragon was the driving factor for an expedition to Komodo Island by W. Douglas Burden in 1926.

After returning with 12 preserved specimens and 2 live ones, this expedition provided the inspiration for the 1933 movie King Kong.

It was also Burden who coined the common name " Komodo dragon.

" Three of his specimens were stuffed and are still on display in the American Museum of Natural History.