The Secret Mission

Sitting on the veranda of our hut at the foot on Gunung Rinjani in Lombok, sipping our morring-kopi, we discussed the journey and our experiences so far. Somehow, we both agreed, only visiting Bali and Lombok while down here did not feel right. It was in fact a bit like if Hitler had decided to only invade Poland and Denmark, and be done with it. History would have been a merciless judge of such small-mindedness. World War one-and-a-half has just not got the same ring to it, right?

The numerous other islands of Wallacea – the region from Lombok across to Papua New Guinea – beckoned us with their exotic and alluring names; Sumbawa, Bumba, Sulawesi, Komodo – each of these names having roughly the same meaning to us: “you KNOW you want to!”. Two cups of kopi later, the decision was made: first, we were going to briefly check the far eastern slopes of Gunung Rinjani to see if they offered anything worth staying a bit for – and then we would set off on another ramshackle ferry across the fantastically named “Alas Strait” (we kid you not – check an atlas!), drive the length of Sumbawa, and island-hop our way to Flores via the fabled island of Komodo.

“Komodo, eh?”, Jens said, his eyes gazing towards the horizon, and his right hand slowly fondling his silver-back, alpha-male beard. Clearly, a plan of sorts was brewing and hatching in his immense brain.

“Pray tell, what are you thinking about?”, Dennis urged, hardly able to conceal his excitement at sharing whatever über-nerdism was currently keeping Jens’ neurons busy.

“What kind of animals live on Komodo?”, Jens asked, sounding like Socrates about to lecture on the finer aspects of classic mathematics.

“Komodo dragons, of course!”, Dennis replied, “the huge beasts that can eat a goat in five minutes!”

“Indeed. But have we not also found out that lizards on islands eat something else besides meat?”, Jens inquired.

“Yes – you are right; quite often on islands, small lizards cannot find insects enough to eat, and thus include nectar and fruits in their diet”, Dennis started, “but… Komodo Dragons and nectar?”, Dennis continued, looking as if he had a bit of trouble envisioning a 3-metre carnivorous lizard gently licking the sweet fluid out of a tiny flower.

“But, Dennis, what about fruits? -did you not recently buy a fruit that made our hotel room smell like a mixture of a used jock-strap and a rotting hamster?”, Jens quipped.

“Indeed I did – the infamous durian fruit that looks like a giant round hedgehog, and which you forced me to quarantine in the bathroom”.

“Is it then not possible to fathom that a giant fruit, which has been around since the time when dinosaurs walked the Earth, and which smells like a rotting corpse – among other things – might be ever so slightly tempting to a huge carnivorous and scavenging lizard?”, Jens rhetorically asked.

We both realised the potential for great storytelling, if we succeeded in making the world’s largest lizard eat one of the world’s most mysterious fruits. And so it came to be that our fellowship of two set out from Lombok to feed durian fruits to Komodo Dragons.

After having paid homage to the major cultural icon of Sembalun Lawang, a giant statue of a garlic (!), it turned out that leaving the village was harder than expected.

Our guide from the day before said he had a friend with a very good car, who could take us to the small harbour Labuhanlombok on the east of Lombok. The friend turned up in a shining new car, and proceeded to drive it through the village at 10 km/hour.

“Very fine car”, Dennis said, “is it new?”.

“Berry new, yes, me I teach Englis at local school”, he replied, beaming proudly. “Have you been driving a lot around in Lombok?”, Dennis inquired.

“In village, yes, a lot!”.

After he had failed to change to second gear for more than one kilometre, and we were approaching the steep mountain-pass, we exchanged worried looks… …and at the very first steep bit, he managed to bring the car to a full stop, because he didn’t rev the engine enough to make it. “Berry strange”, he said, looking worried, “is new car!”. He then proceeded to rev the engine at max rpm, and then pressing the BRAKE with the other foot – the car made a few high-pitched noises of protest, and died again. “Are you sure your friend has even driven a car before?”, we asked our guide. “yes, yes – but maybe only in the village. But I think his car is broken”.

The driver got out. “I think my car is broken!” , he exclaimed, looking almost happy that he didn’t have to attempt to go any further, “I’m berry, berry sorry!”. We flagged down a passing small truck going in the wrong direction, filled with goods. The driver smiled and said he’d drop off the stuff and come back to drive us to the coast for a small fee, no worries! You gotta love third-world countries for the magical way in which seemingly large problems always somehow get solved along the way. Literally, in our case. While we waited for the truck to return, a small group of black monkeys made it through the trees right next to the small road, and Jens managed to get some good photos of them jumping from tree to tree. We tried to follow them for a bit to get some feeding observations, but the undergrowth was too dense with thorny lianas.

The truck arrived, and with death-defying speed we made it through some very nice forest (dang!) down to the ferry harbour, and jumped onto yet another wreck of a ferry that probably came from a small ex-Soviet country that no longer exists. Crossing the Alas Strait to Labuhan Tano in Sumbawa took only a few hours, then with a bus to the city of Sumbawa Besar, where we checked into a small, rather seedy hotel. The room looked as if it was usually rented on a hourly basis; crappy beds with thin matresses, stains of a mysterious nature on all walls, and 1,976 cigarette stubs in the drawer of the small desk. Yum.

The following day we caught a bus in the afternoon that would take us to Bima, the second large-ish city on Sumbawa. Looking on a map, Sumbawa looks long, but not that long. Wrong. After a gruelling seven-hour bus ride along a road that hugs every single bay on the coast, driving at a max speed of 40-50 km/h, we made it to the outskirts of Bima shortly before midnight. We chartered a tiny horse-drawn cart to take us into town to a hotel, and packed ourselves and our luggage onto the miniscule vehicle – probably much to the chagrin of the poor horse that had to pull it all.

In the hotel, before drifting off to dreamland, we plotted and schemed some more. How were we going to feed a giant durian fruit to a Komodo dragon without the national park ranger noticing? How would we get away alive, if the dragon preferred us to the fruit? How were we going to get a durian fruit out to Komodo in the first place? Many things to ponder…

Next morning, we had hoped to get a ferry from Sape on the east coast of Flores to go to Komodo, but apparently it only sailed on Saturdays. Two days from now. We could not afford to lose any time, as Dennis had to be close to a working (!) telephone for a job-interview on the coming Monday. We had to face it: our attempt to do it on the cheap, and see Sumbawa as well, had failed. Luckily, there was a small airport close to Bima, from where we flew all the way back to Bali, and caught another plane to Flores – to the east of Komodo – the next morning. Proper island-hopping! (hopping back and forth, that is…).

“Could you please tell us when the ferry for Komodo leaves”, Jens asked Thommy and Louis, the two rastafarians whose car we had chartered at the airport. They both looked at us, and started laughing; “Man, the ferry stopped sailing five years ago, maaan!”. Bugger. The tiny harbour of Labuhan Bajo did indeed not seem to hold any ferries – but tonnes of other, smaller vessels.

“Don’t worry, we have a friend with a good boat, man, you come see him, man! Let’s go have lunch and discuss business, man!”. Yah, man.

Thommy and Louis made us an offer for a three days/two nights boat charter to go to the islands of Rinca and Komodo – both part of the Komodo National Park – where there are many dragons. After a great deal of bartering, we had negotiated a good price – and Jens added, “we will take the deal, IF you can get us two ripe durian fruits!”. Silence and disbelief. “What, man??!!”. “Two durians, or no deal!”, Jens repeated; “we need them for some… …photographs! –we are journalists, you see”. “Okeh, man… -whatever, man”. They went off to buy provisions. And durian fruits.

Half an hour later, they came back, looking a bit worried. “No durians, man, not the right season, man…”. We looked at each other, the sheer and utter desperation of being so close and yet so far probably clearly visible on our faces – because now Louis proudly held up a chunk of ripe, yellow, slimy, sticky and smelly… …jackfruit! “Whaddabout dis, man? Almost same!”.

In fact, durians are from a tree in the Bombacaceae family, and jackfruits are from the Moraceae – that is, not very closely related – but they do indeed share certain traits. They are both from old plant families that would have co-existed with dinosaurs and giant lizards. They are both giant fruits, weighing up to several kilos each, which hang directly on the trunks and large branches of the trees.

They both have a hard spiky surface, and soft, smelly pulp inside. In other words, they are a good example of convergent evolution, where similar selective pressures can sometimes mold unrelated species into sharing some of the same traits.

We looked at each other. This would have to do; there was absolutely no turning back so close to the target. Admittedly, a durian smells worse than a jackfruit – but the very similar sickly-sweet semi-rotten smell that the jackfruit gave off would have to do. Jens inspected the jackfruit very closely, and nodded. Off to Rinca, Komodo, and beyond!

The boat turned out to be a rather large wooden vessel of some 20 metres in length, manned by Harry, the captain, Faisal, the cook and sailor, and Lyngo, the boat-boy.

We were seated at a low table, coffee was served with bananas, and off we went – feeling mightily like a couple of imperialistic explorers on our chartered boat; a crew to serve us and all. When the evening approached, Harry anchored the boat next to a fairly small mangrove island. “Wait”, he simply said. We were joined by another boat, carrying a Spanish tourist. Clearly something was going to happen, as our boats lay side by side, facing the small island.

When night had almost fallen, we could suddenly make out a few large, silent animals flying out from the island and across our boats; their wings beating slowly and somehow not quite bird-like…

We both quickly realised that we were looking at large fruitbats, or flying foxes, that were setting out from their daytime roosting trees – the mangrove island in this case – to forage on fruits and nectar all night long. We had both seen fruitbats before, and agreed that this view was not really that special, when we realised that the few fruitbats had become tens of bats flying out, then hundreds, then finally thousands of bats passing us in a wide arc from the small island towards the mainland!

For more than half an hour, until we could only hear their almost silent wings and a few scattered chatterings, they poured forth – we estimated at least some 30,000 to 50,000 large fruitbats. Now, that was something very special to behold indeed, and we spent the rest of the evening chatting about how these bats fit into the ecosystems and habitats we had seen. Nerdism pure. The night was spent on mattresses on a small extra-deck on the roof of the bridge – where a cool breeze made it very comfortable indeed.

In the wee hours of dawn we were woken by the noises of the crew making coffee and breakfast – which we enjoyed while the course was set towards Rinca, the first island of Dragons. The archipelago we were sailing through was stark but beautiful. The islands were hilly and almost barren; dry brown grass and a few trees. However, the beaches we passed could easily compete with the most gorgeous tropical beaches we had seen elsewhere, but no people in sight anywhere. Bliss.

Getting close to dragon-land, we had to figure out how to get the jackfruit onto the island. We both wanted to be the one to carry the fruit, and subsequently feed it to the dragons. A minor discussion broke out.

“No worries, I can fit it in my backpack”, Jens said.

“Ah, but it’s rather heavy, no problem, I will take it”, Dennis tried to be nice. Suddenly, we both somehow had the same thought simultaneosuly. What if the dragons actually really liked the fruit? Walking around on an island with 600 of the buggers, carrying what could amount to an olfactory “eat me!” commercial might become a bit tricky.

“Ok, Jens, you can take it”.

“No, no, Dennis, please, you should be the one to have the honour”.

“I insist, Jens, you are the biggest nerd”.

Finally, bowing to the pressure from the alpha-male, Dennis put the sack with the fruit in his backpack. All set and ready to go.

Arriving at Rinca, we saw our first dragon sleeping halfway underneath some shrubs next to the pier. Promising. At the the rangers’ house, there were a handful of large creatures moving around in the dust, obviously fighting over something. Four large dragons sqabbling over some food scraps from the kitchen. Very promising.

We got our first good dragon-photos here. One of the dragons approached us a bit, flicking its large tongue out and in – seemingly in the general direction of Dennis’ backpack. It sat down and started to salivate. Very worrying.

The ranger, who was going to accompany us, grabbed a rather flimsy-looking stick with a forked end from a rack. “Let’s go!”, he said. We felt like asking him how this stick should keep a 3-metre dragon from putting us on its menu, but he looked very sure of himself and the stick, so we went along.

We made our way through a very dry landscape with tall grass and lots of shrubs. Perfect hiding places for a dragon-ambush, we thought. It is an eerie experience to walk somewhere where you realise that you have suddenly been relegated from the top of the food chain to somewhere further down.

Presently, we came across a huge circular mound of dirt, some 6-7 metres across, and one metre high. It had several large holes dug into it. “This is an old megapode nest, which has afterwards been used by dragons to lay their eggs”, the ranger said.

Megapodes! We both very much wanted to see these fantastic birds! They are 40-50 cm tall ground-dwelling birds with powerful legs, which they use to scrape large amounts of organic matter and soil together in huge mounds like the one we were standing at. They then proceed to dig a hole in the middle in which the female lays her eggs and covers them with dirt again. The mound now functions as a giant incubator; the rotting organic matter (most often leaves) gives off heat in which the embryos can develop inside the eggs. Meanwhile, the parent birds adjust the temperature by either scraping off surplus dirt, or by adding more on top. We were definitely going to keep an eye open for these wonderful birds! As well as any hungry reptiles.

After having passed through a narrow dry gully, we heard something moving to our right. Something very large. Slowly parting the shrubs, we were relieved to see a massive grey waterbuffalo peacefully nibbling away at a small shrub. Probably at the moment blissfully unaware of the fact that it is one of the usual items on the dragons’ diet, together with deer.

Komodo Dragons do not have to outright kill their prey by sheer force; it is enough for them to deliver a few powerful bites and wound the prey – and then hang around a few days, waiting for the animal to slowly die. It was long believed that an extremely lethal combination of infectious bacteria in the dragons’ saliva sped up the process of death – but recent research has also identified several poisons normally found in snakes in the saliva of the dragons. These fascinating creatures clearly hold many secrets yet. We wondered, was occasional fruit-eating one of them?

Around the next bend in the path, we came to a sudden stop as we spotted a sleeping dragon, smack in the middle of the path. It gave us a good opportunity to more closely study its wrinkly skin with the hard scales, and the massive claws on the feet.

Our ranger gently pushed the forked end of the stick behind the dragon’s hindleg to make it move away from the path

– the dragon sprang into action with remarkable speed, whipping out with its powerful tail at the ranger, and scuttling off into the undergrowth. Whatever happened to “letting sleeping dragons lie”?

Oh well, at least it showed us that for some weird reason, the dragons respect the flimsy sticks. That is, until one of them realises that it is in fact only a flimsy stick.

A bit further along, we spotted a large male dragon, making its way across a grassy hill on a small path.

He was walking slowly, tongue flicking in and out when he spotted us. Perfect place. Now or never. “You know, four years ago, back in Europe, Jens and I made a bet”, Dennis said to the ranger. “We discussed whether a Komodo Dragon would eat a jackfruit”. The ranger looked at us, flummoxed. “On many other islands, lizards eat fruits”, Jens chipped in, “even large varanids do so”.

Dennis added, “I think Komodo Dragons eat jackfruits; in fact I bet Jens two bottles of Arak [local rice-brandy] that they will”. The ranger looked even more perplexed.

“Say, what if – by sheer coincidence – I would happen to have a jackfruit in my backpack; would it be ok to put it out on the path in front of the dragon to see what happens?”, Dennis said, with his most innocent face. While the ranger looked as if he was contemplating the emerging fact that he was guiding two madmen around the island, we pulled the sack with the jackfruit out of the backpack, and showed him. Yes, definitely. These two Danes were completely and utterly mad.

Before he could find anything to say for or against our insane proposal, we quickly stepped on the fruit, breaking it open to reveal the slimy, smelly yellow pulp inside. The dragon was still walking along the same path.

We placed the fruit smack in the middle of the path, about 10 metres in front of the dragon. Cameras poised, we waited. Closer, closer still. Five metres; the dragon had definitely seen the jackfruit now; its tongue flicked rapidly in and out. So close.

We could almost already see our photos on the frontpage of Nature or Science (two tabloid weekly science magazines). Without stopping for second thoughts, the dragon went straight towards the fruit… …and then, right in front of the fruit, veered off; stepping down from the path and into the tall grass! It acted as if the smell of the fruit was just about the most revolting thing it had ever faced! (and, coming from an animal that loves to gorge on rotting meat, that’s quite bad, we reckon).

We looked flabbergasted at each other; what the heck was that all about??! The dragon had not even tasted the fruit, but in fact seemed positively revolted by it. Had we unwittingly stumbled across a hitherto unknown dragon-repellent? Would it from now on not be necessary for the rangers to carry the sacred dragon-scarer™ stick with them? (-here, sir, please anoint yourself with this yummy but rather smelly and sticky jackfruit-pulp before you venture out into dragon-land, if you would be so good).

In the meantime, our ranger had started giggling, and was now roaring with laughter. “Dragon, eat fruit? Hahahaha! –only eat meat!”. He was utterly unable to speak for the next five minutes, as he shook his head and laughed at the sheer folly of these Danes. He picked up one of the chunks of jackfruit, and proceeded to relish the sweet pulp himself, then offered some of it to us with a solemn face. “Here, have some. It is good… …for humans, not dragons!”, promptly collapsing with laughter again.

Keeping in line with our concocted excuse, Dennis started to complain, “that was only one trial, Jens! You have to give me a second chance to prove my theory right!”. Jens good-heartedly played along, “ok, laddie, you get a second chance, but if it doesn’t work, you owe me four bottles of arak!”.

Slowly making our way back to the rangers’ station, we spot the occasional dragon, but none that seem in the right place to try our luck a second time. We decided to try some of the large dragons back at the station. When we got back, they were lying in the shade under the house by now, but two of them came out to investigate when we put the by now very smily, very sticky, and very smelly remains of the jackfruit within five metres of them. They approached, flicked their tongues over the fruit a couple of times, and then one of them promptly tried to mount the other and mate with it! The ranger’s bellows of laughter could no doubt be heard on the other side of Flores.

So, summa summarum, we dismally failed to prove our hypothesis – but came up with two alternatives, based on our data: jackfruit is either a) a dragon repellant, or b) a dragon aphrodisiac. The jury is still out on this one. And we still need to repeat the experiment with durians. Any funders out there?

After our adventures on Rinca, we set off towards Komodo, where we arrived after yet another night’s great sleep on the boat.

Approaching the pier, we could make out a small but distinctly dragon-like shape right on the beach a few hundred metres away. Luckily, the dragon more or less stayed where it was until we got off the boat, and could move towards it – yet again being joined by a ranger with a flimsy stick. The dragon was posing like a photomodel for us for the next half an hour; we were both in utter and absolute Nerdvana! It strolled leisurely down the beach; it went close to the water and stretched its neck, looking like Nessie – it simply almost convinced us that we had somehow managed to enter a time-machine and arrived back in the age of reptiles.

The ranger said that we were very lucky; that it was rare to see a dragon on the beach for this long. We did indeed feel lucky. Very lucky. And very happy to be so close to such a fantastic animal!

The only other dragons we saw on Komodo were three large males, living underneath the rangers’ house, also here living off the food scraps thrown to them, and probably the occasional misbehaving child. That’ll learn them.

We did, however, see some fantastic birds on Komodo; firstly, we spotted several of the intriguing megapodes, striding through the forest and foraging by scraping in the litter with their powerful feet.

We also came across a 2-metre long, brown sausage that was hanging along the major branch of a tree –which on closer inspection turned out to be a resting swarm of the large honey bee Apis cerana on the lookout for a new home.

Letting sleeping bees lie/hang, we proceeded into the dry forest which was dominated by a large palm, of which many were fruiting. These palms only fruit once in their life, after which they die and become naked grey skeletons – but they carry a LOT of fruits, which function as a magnet for all fruit-eating animals (alas, apparently not including the dragons).

We spotted the green imperial pigeon, a large beautiful bird, feeding on the fruits, as well as a very Australian fauna-element, the sulphur-crested cockatoo.

A bit later, observing a strange looking friarbird – a special kind of honeyeater – foraging on nectar, we realised that we were deep into the region of Wallacea indeed!

Finally, just before leaving Komodo again, we enjoyed a well-earned bottle of cold water, while enjoying several other species of nectar-feeding birds frolicking in a flowering tree close by – white-eyes, sunbirds, orioles, and flower-peckers.

Pure bliss and Nerdvana! –and two very tired, but very happy biologists (and a bit of shameless product placement).