Weekly Dose of Cute: Baby Komodo Dragon

Sure, when he gets big, this little guy will be one of the world's largest lizards, weighing in at 150 lbs and growing to length of up to 10 feet long. He'll be feared as a man eater, possessing a venomous bite that can be fatal. But right now he's just a little guy, and boy, is he cute!

Komodo Dragons are the largest lizards on the planet, giving us just the tiniest taste of what the world must have been like in the age of dinosaurs. What they have in size, however, they lack in distribution: the range of the Komodo is the smallest of any of the world's large carnivores, consisting of only on a handful of Indonesian islands. In part due to this, they are listed as vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN. What threatens them even more than their small range is that while several thousand are left in the wild, only a small portion, around 350, are thought to be breeding females. Also, while are protected under Appendix I of CITES (which bans all international commercial trade), poaching does occur, and their fragmented populations are hard to protect. Furthermore, like with many large, dangerous animals, conservation efforts towards these creatures are not always welcomed by the local communities.