Dragon Lizards of Komodo: An Expedition to the Lost World of the Dutch East Indies

by W. Douglas Burden

Overview

In the early 1920's, renowned American geologist, naturalist and hunter, William Douglas Burden, led expeditions to the Arctic as well as to tropical islands. His most widely publicized expedition was to the Dutch East Indies to the Island of Komodo in 1926. He and his first wife, Catherine White Burden, and their party went looking for a fierce direct descendent of the dinosaur, Varanus Komodoensis, which came to be known as the Komodo dragon and which had been rumored to be as long as 30 feet. No white man had captured one, and Mr. Burden was determined to do so…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781787209008
Publisher:	Muriwai Books
Publication date:	01/12/2017
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	172
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

William Douglas Burden (1898-1978) was a geologist, naturalist, hunter, filmmaker and author. His special interest was in Komodo dragons and animal behavior. Burden was a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) from 1926-1961, where he established the AMNH Department of Experimental Biology in 1928 (later named the Department of Animal Behavior).
Born in Troy, New York in 1898, he received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1922 and his Master's degree from Columbia University in 1926. Shortly after graduating from Harvard, Burden went on one of his early expeditions to the Far East to bring back amphibian, fish and insect specimens for the museum, and in 1926 he was elected to the museum's board of trustees.
He founded and was president of several film companies, including Burden Pictures, Inc., together with ichthyologist Ilia Tolstoy, from 1928 until 1931, Marine Studios (later named Marineland), an aquarium project in Florida which worked to develop a shark repellent for use by the U.S. Navy during World War II. Marine Studios was formed in collaboration with Tolstoy, as well as C. V. Whitney, an American businessman, film producer, and writer.
Burden was married three times and had four children.
He passed away in Charlotte, Vermont in 1978 at the age of 80.

Born in Troy, New York in 1898, he received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1922 and his Master’s degree from Columbia University in 1926. Shortly after graduating from Harvard, Burden went on one of his early expeditions to the Far East to bring back amphibian, fish and insect specimens for the museum, and in 1926 he was elected to the museum’s board of trustees.
He founded and was president of several film companies, including Burden Pictures, Inc., together with ichthyologist Ilia Tolstoy, from 1928 until 1931, Marine Studios (later named Marineland), an aquarium project in Florida which worked to develop a shark repellent for use by the U.S. Navy during World War II. Marine Studios was formed in collaboration with Tolstoy, as well as C. V. Whitney, an American businessman, film producer, and writer.
Burden was married three times and had four children.
He passed away in Charlotte, Vermont in 1978 at the age of 80.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. In the Dust of a Chinese war

Iii. Dreamy Vapors of the Tropics

Iv. A Volcano, Nudity and Tigers

V. A Forgotten Island

VI. Dragon Lizards

VII. To be the King of Komodo

VIII. The Splintered Mountains of Wetar

IX. Herpetological Notes