You have been provided with a small grant from the Ivanco Research Foundation to do a pilot study on the behaviour of an almost mythological beast, the Komodo Dragon. Your funds allow you to fly to the Indonesian archipelago to view the beast in its natural habitat, which includes a few small islands. Your flight has seemed so short you hardly believe it has happened. You have been given a pair of binoculars, a pen, and a notebook. Not much to work with, but enough for you to begin. You debate about the need to get 'really' close to this animal, but decide that can wait for the second trip (when you have a field assistant).

Your goals here are to describe, in detail, the behaviour that you see this animal engaged in. Not a simple description, but a description where the lay reader would have some basic understanding and be able to visualize the behaviour. To complete this assignment, the Ivanco Research Foundation expects to be able to read the summary of the behaviour and, if they had the right anatomical equipment, they should be able to reproduce the behaviour simply from your explanation - so be complete.

Imagine you are seeing this animal for the first time and are watching simply what it does. You will explain this, then search out why the animal might behave this way. Suggest a hypothesis for things you have seen this animal do.

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Scientific Frontiers article
Information site
Honolulu Zoo site

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Remember - Animal, Behaviour, Causation, Development, Evolution, Function.
You fly back, exhausted, but excited. What an amazing creature and opportunity. A written report of your observations is due January 18, 2002 to the Ivanco Research Foundation. No more than 3 double spaced pages should be submitted.

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Your report will be evaluated by the review committee with the following criteria:
Content:
- clearly presented description of the animal (3.5pts)
- clearly presented description of the behaviour(s) (10 pts)
- what is the animal doing (3.5 pts)
- hypothesis for what the animal is doing
(what underlies this behaviour) (5 pts)
Style:
- this is what you make of it (3 pts)