November 5 - Monitors, Komodo Dragons, Island Gigantism/Dwarfism, Wrangel Island (Siberia), Ada Blackjack

I'm sharing this on the 6th but this is my journey from last night that really inspired me to finally go forward with this. It's a long journey but very interesting.

How I got started: Kind of a funny start on this path...I was watching Seinfeld ("The Abstinence") and for whatever reason, the end scene where David Letterman is telling Jerry about the time his uncle was attacked by a monitor really caught me.

Monitors: Are the family Varanidae, a group of carnivorous lizards. Some Varanid lizards have venom in their saliva. They are believed to be very intelligent, being able to count up to at least six. The Komodo Dragon is the largest living lizard and a member of the Varanidae family.

Komodo Dragon: The largest living species of lizard, growing to an average length of 2-3 metres. The largest known Komodo Dragon was 10'3" and weighed 365 pounds. They have roughly 60 serrated teeth that are up to 1" long. These teeth are almost completely covered by gingival tissue, which becomes lacerated during feeding. From this, virulent bacteria grow in their mouths. They can run at up to 20 km/h and can swim up to 15 feet deep. The Komodo Dragon is considered a vulnerable species. The great size of the Komodo Dragon can likely be attributed to Island Gigantism.

Island Gigantism: This is a biological phenomenon where the size of animals isolated on an island increases dramatically over generations. This is a good example of an evolutionary trait due to environment. As an example, a herbivore that is large in size would often be impeded by it's size when it attempts to escape a predator; however, the small size of an island typically leads to a small number of predators. Thus, the herbivore may grow very large due to the lack of opposing predators. Almost all examples of this evolutionary trait are extinct due to the expansion of the human race. Two living examples include the giant tortoises on the Galapagos Islands and the Komodo Dragon. Island gigantism is the inverse of island dwarfism.

Island Dwarfism: Island dwarfism tends to occur amongst very large mammals. This is an evolutionary trait where a species tends to adapt to the small number of resources available on an island. Typically, a smaller animal needs less resources and is thus more likely to survive in a situation where resources are relatively limited. The Woolly Mammoths discovered on Wrangel Island, Siberia are one of the more famous examples.

Wrangel Island: This island located in the Arctic Ocean, between the Chukchi Sea and the East Siberian Sea. It is only 7300 square km and is home to the Sovetskaya Mountain, which is about 3596 feet tall at it's highest point. It has been shown that woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island until approximately 1700 BC, but these mammoths were substantially smaller due to the effects of Island Dwarfism. The island is known as a World Heritage Site. In 1921, Russian Vilhjalmur Stefansson sent five settlers to the island to claim it for Canada. The only survivor of the expedition was the Inuit Ada Blackjack.

Ada Blackjack: An inuit born in Alaska on May 10, 1898. In 1921, she joined an expedition across the Chukchi Sea to Russia's Wrangel Island with four others. Rations quickly ran out and game was scarce, so on January 28, 1923, three of the men made an attempt to travel 700 miles across the frozen Chukchi Sea to Siberia for help and food, leaving the fourth ill man and Ada behind. The ill man was afflicted with scurvy and died in April 1923, while the three men who left for Siberia were never seen again. On August 19, 1923, a former colleague of Vilhjalmur Stefansson rescued Ada. Ada's survival drew great media attention, which she did not particularly care for. Steffanson and his colleague exploited Ada's story to publish many successful books and articles, none of which earned a penny for Ada.


So there is the first one. Keep your eyes peeled for more and I hope you enjoyed the trip.