question about komodo dragon/ feral dog interactions

[spinosaurus1]

can someone post an account about the interactions of komodo dragons and feral dogs? I keep hearing that komodo dragons usually outcompete, possibly dominate rivaling feral dogs in their interactions, but I can't find any account or study on this subject.

[creature386]

From what I know, they kleptoparasite each other, but feral dogs only do so when the dragon is a juvenile:

Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis; reptiles) and feral dogs
kleptoparasitize each other: feral dogs chase small dragons from carrion and
large dragons supplant feral dogs (Auffenberg, 1981).

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2008.00954.x/abstract;jsessionid=BF4607DDDF1A012FD764AB966DA26CE7.f02t02?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

Unfortunately, I cannot access Auffenberg's book anymore. Really sad, given that this book has an answer to like 80% of the things you want to know about komodo dragons.

[Venomous Dragon]

It is a reltionship that I too am curious about but like you have only found brief mentions of it stating the ora is dominate and somtimes hunts them.

[creature386]

I remember you used that relationship as an argument in the discussion about komodo dragons in Australia. Maybe coherentsheaf knows more about this, since he has Auffenberg's book.

[coherentsheaf]

From Auffenberg:

However, at the present time, the major competitors of medium to large size oras seem to be dogs and man. Dogs compete mainly for rats, but approximately 10 percent of their food is deer. Dogs sometimes dig rats from their burrows during the day, but most are obtained from late afternoon to about 2300 hr and early in the morning when the rats are active. Small packs of up to four dogs often hunt deer by pursuing them until the deer are exhausted and finally pulling them down. The age of deer killed by feral dogs is unknown, but if the pattern is comparable to that of the African hunting dog (Lycaon pictus), they prey heavily on the female segment of the population, killing large numbers of parturient females and newly born young (Estes and Goddard, 1967; Pienaar, 1968). I once watched three Komodo dogs as they hunted for piglets by randomly running through the savannas until the prey bolted from cover. The dogs then gave chase and killed one that weighed about 3 kg. Dogs often compete with oras for carrion, including dead oras (Chap. 9).
...
Feral dogs are not, by themselves, important competitors of large oras, particularly since the oras feed on dogs whenever they can and so exert at least some influence on dog densities. However, the combination of trained packs of dogs, man, and fire becomes extremely important to ora densities. The details of the varied interactions between oras and man are provided in Chapter 12.

[spinosaurus1]

thanks for the verifications. but I hope you don't mind me asking another question since you have access to the paper. I reviewed theropod's post in the varanid thread of komodo dragons predating on deer by biting them at the throat. it would be interesting to read such documentation since its quite different from the usual methods of severing tendons.

[Ceratodromeus]

While I'm not coherentsheaf, I did take screenshots of the predation sequence on a tethered goat documented in Auffenberg' book, here they are


I've always found the fact that these varanids utilize different methods of predation tactics, which is a stark deviation from what most people think they do with prey(bite and wait for the venom to kill it).

Regarding the main focus of this thread, dogs compete with oras over carcasses, buy single dogs are taken as prey on occasion, e.g. this