Such jokers, those Komodo dragons

From Bloomington, Ind., at a meeting of the Animal Behavior Society

A young Komodo dragon will spontaneously mouth and paw at a Frisbee and make other gestures that “would be considered play in a dog or cat,” says Gordon Burghardt of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Behaviorists wrestling with the problem of describing and explaining play haven’t paid much attention to reptiles, Burghardt says.