Chasing the Magic Dragon Researchers risk life and limb to solve
the puzzle of the Komodo dragon’s immunity to its own deadly
bacteria LUIS CRUZ stalks his prey carefully. Armed only with a
crocodile noose—a 15-foot plastic pole with a lasso at the
end—the park ranger is trying to capture the world’s largest
lizard, a Komodo dragon. Though it doesn’t breathe fire, this
dragon is still a fearsome beast: more than seven feet in length
and weighing more than 150 pounds, with flesh-slicing serrated
teeth, a whiplike tail that can snap bones and a top running
speed of nearly 20 miles per hour. Dragons are voracious
carnivores that regularly kill and eat animals more than five
times larger than Cruz. But the scaly, gray-green reptile isn’t
thinking about making a meal of Cruz on this hot, sunny morning
at Indonesia’s Komodo National Park. It just wants to be left
alone. So it shuffles away under the palm trees as the ranger
approaches. But, with a deft movement, Cruz slips the lasso over
the reptile’s head. A half-