Phoenix Zoo to debut pair of Komodo dragons

The Valley’s most talked about new residents might just be the ultimate power couple.

With razor-sharp, serrated teeth and enough brute force to knock a deer to the ground, there aren’t many duos as formidable as Ivan and Gaia, a pair of Komodo dragons debuting Wednesday at Phoenix Zoo.

Capable of reaching a size of 10 feet long and more than 300 pounds, Komodo dragons are the heaviest lizards on Earth.

“When they look at you, it’s like something out of 'Jurassic Park,’” says Dan Subaitis, the zoo’s director of animal management.

The 15-year-old monitor lizards are the stars of Land of the Dragons, a highly anticipated new exhibit that’s been promoted on billboards, truck trailers, city buses and radio spots.

“It’s been years since the zoo has built an animal exhibit of this magnitude,” said Bert Castro, the zoo’s president and CEO, in a statement. “We’re certainly excited about giving our guests a compelling new reason to visit the zoo.”

Located along the zoo’s Tropics Trail, the exhibit re-creates the lizards’ natural habitat, a smattering of islands in the South Pacific where 3,000 to 5,000 Komodos live in the wild.

It includes two outdoor yards with pools and state-of-the-art heated rocks, which zoo staff can control to give the reptiles a warm — and conspicuously situated — place to bask on cool days. Visitors will be able to see the lizards from several vantage points.

There’s also an indoor space for the lizards, where guests can watch through a large window on days when it’s too cold for the reptiles to be outside (less than about 60 degrees).

“Ivan doesn’t seem to mind people at all. I think he kind of enjoys it. I don’t know if he’s thinking he can jump on someone or what, but he walks right up to the glass and will get eye-to-eye with little kids,” says Subaitis.

Gaia is more timid.

“She was really nervous when she got here, and our reptile collections manager spent several hours sitting with her — through a fence — talking to her, feeding her pieces of smelt, and scratching her head with a special brush we have. She’d tilt her head and close her eyes just like a dog.”

In fact, Subaitis says, the lizards are somewhat doglike in their personalities and intelligence levels. Zookeepers are training them to follow laser pointers, and Ivan responds when his name is called.

“They are very bright and very motivated by food. You could compare them to a Labrador; they’ll do anything for a snack.”

Still, they’re not an animal you’d want to grow too comfortable with. In their native habitat, Komodo dragons are top-level predators, preying on everything from deer to each other.

“They lie in ambush. They’re a heavy animal, so they’ll knock something right over and go after its guts and throat,” says Subaitis.

The lizards also harbor about 50 kinds of toxic bacteria in their mouths, so even if they don’t manage to kill something outright with a bite, they’ll stalk it for days, waiting for it to die from blood poisoning.

“I don’t think they have a huge desire to eat any of us, but they do associate us with food. They look at you like, 'What have you got?’ But that intent can change real quick. They operate on instinct,” says Subaitis.

There are only 82 Komodo dragons in zoos in the United States. Hatched in captivity, Ivan and Gaia will play an important role in growing that number.

“We work with all the other zoos to determine which lizards are the best genetic matches to breed and to make sure there’s genetic diversity in the population. The ones that are good fits will be transferred to breed about once a year. We’d like to get the number up, nationwide, to about 115,” says Subaitis.

He says Komodos in zoos help researchers learn more about the species, and that information can impact the way scientists and communities treat the endangered wild lizards living in Indonesia.

“There are a lot of things we don’t know about their natural history. No one even knew they existed until about 100 years ago,” says Subaitis.

The exhibit is the first of the zoo’s expansion projects under its Capital Campaign, launched last year with the goal of raising $20 million by 2012 and transforming the venue into “a world class zoo for a world class city.”

Land of the Dragons

What: Get face-to-face with two live Komodo dragons in a new exhibit that re-creates the creatures’ South Pacific habitat.

When: Opens 9 a.m. Wednesday; after that 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily

Where: Phoenix Zoo, 455 N. Galvin Parkway, Phoenix

Cost: Zoo admission is $16 for adults; $11 for seniors; and $7 for kids ages 3-12

Information: (602) 273-1341 or www.phoenixzoo.org