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RE: Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Might Just Be Defeated By The Blood Of Komodo Dragons

in #science • 8 years ago

Yep! The komodo dragon is very venomous, even if you survive the venom from the bite, the various pathogenic bacteria that live in its mouth can kill you by infection days later.

Are there not many of them? Is that why they are protected?

8 years ago in #science by
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     8 years ago  

    because dragons are almost endangered animals, because their habitat is now widely inhabited by humans. So humans also should maintain the development of the dragons which are included biodiversity Indonesia.

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     8 years ago (edited) 
    Are there not many of them? Is that why they are protected?
    Indeed: Komodo dragons nowadays are only living on a few Indonesian islands. It is estimated that altogether there are still about 5000 surviving individuals. (My wife is Indonesian but hasn't seen one so far apart from a few in zoological gardens.) 1980 was built the "Komodo National Park" to protect the last exemplars. Yes, they are terrifying and spectacular but they have no chance against the most dangerous animal on earth ... the Homo sapiens.
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     8 years ago  

    Actually it seems that the poison of the "dragon" is its main weapon. Its bacteria "only" seem to have an additional side effect: central role of the venom. Maybe this is also interesting. But I guess there will be further examinations.

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     8 years ago (edited) 

    From the Nat Geo article

    There were no virulent species at all, and certainly nothing capable of causing a quick, fatal infection.

    Well this isn't right, most of the bacterial species there are virulent.

    Nevertheless, yeah! The poison is certainly it's weapon, the possibility of infection is just an unfortunate occurrence that can still get you, if you are lucky and survive the venom. The question these authors were initially intrigued by was... okay so there are these pathogenic bacteria living in the mouth of the dragon (I like calling them a dragon...conjures up fun images in my head), why don't those bacteria infect the animal? They weren't questioning the effect from a bite. :D

    Edit: Well there is this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23805543, which states that the majority are not virulent. Hmm...

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     8 years ago  
    There were no virulent species at all, and certainly nothing capable of causing a quick, fatal infection.
    Well this isn't right, most of the bacterial species there are virulent.
    I agree that there is no doubt that many of the bacteria are virulent that makes it so interesting to examine why the Komodo dragon is resistant against them. I was also surprised about this claim in the second link I put here. Here one can read the abstract of the article claiming that ...
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     8 years ago  

    Right, it doesn't make it less fascinating that for now not all questions are answered. (Actually most of the time reality means to have more questions than answers, so that's nothing to worry about. :-)

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     8 years ago  

    Yep, it stands in stark contrast to a publication three years prior Here.

    I think I am going to have to be satisfied with having more questions then definitive answers with regards to this for now!