Planet Earth cameraman finds huge Komodo dragon in hotel bathroom
'It’s not quite what you expect to find when you go to the toilet'
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A BBC cameraman returned from a day of filming in Indonesia to find a huge Komodo dragon sitting in the bathroom of his hotel room.
Mark MacEwen, who was working on the broadcaster’s upcoming Planet Earth II documentary series, had been out filming the large lizards all day before returning to find one had invaded his accommodation.
A video of the incident posted on YouTube showed local guides trying to coax the dragon out of the house with ropes and pieces of rotten meat - the lizard’s favourite food.
“It’s not quite what you expect to find when you go to the bathroom,” MacEwen is heard saying in the clip. “The next problem we’ve got is how to get a dragon out of the toilet, he looks quite comfortable.”
After eventually being drawn out of the bathroom, the dragon opted to hide out in the cameraman’s bedroom, with MacEwen adding: “That’s what they mean when they talk about a monster under the bed.”
After defecating in the middle of the floor, the dragon simply wandered out of the front door and walked off into the undergrowth, to the amusement of the crew.
Komodo dragons can reach up to three metres in length and weight about 90 kg when they are fully grown. When cornered, they have been known to aggressively attack humans and even eat them.
The dragons are some of the most powerful lizards in existence and mainly prey on pigs and goats.
The first episode of the Planet Earth II series is due to be broadcast on Sunday at 8pm on BBC1.
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