Kraken was the first Komodo to be bred in captivity. She hatched out at GMU, but was raised at the National Zoo. Her parents were wild-caught dragons- there’s still WC dragons in the AZA today- and this one specific individual probably did more to revolutionize lizard care in professional settings than any other individual lizard throughout zoo history.

Until Kraken, social enrichment wasn’t a thing people thought about. It wasn’t something anybody felt was necessary for lizards, because they were just… lizards. Sure, some keepers would play with their favorites, but it wasn’t until the National Zoo started documenting what she was doing that anybody realized how much Komodo dragons like to play with us too.

Kraken’s not in that video, but she’s the one who inspired all of the social studies that have been done on captive Komodo dragons. When she was at the National Zoo, her keepers  started getting curious when, for no apparent reason, she kept gingerly stealing things from peoples’ pockets and tugging on their shoelaces. So they started giving her stuff- Frisbees, blankets, soda cans, anything she showed an interest in.

She played with them, just like a mammal might. The way play behavior is described in psychology is a given activity that’s voluntary, repeated, and conducted under “relatively benign” circumstances. Keeper staff found that her conduct during the study met all of these criteria. “Kraken,” they wrote, had clearly demonstrated “play-like behavior with objects and even with humans (tug-of-war).” Moreover, she “could discriminate between prey and nonprey” while showing “varying responses” with different items (rubber rings, shoes, etc.). (There’s an excellent book on Komodo dragons that has an entire chapter devoted to her.)

The height of the crack in the wall is very low. The implication is intended to be that he started clawing at this wall when he was much, much smaller. At this size, if the figure stood, it would nearly touch the ceiling.

The marks are mostly in clusters of 4 parallel lines, implying that he was indeed clawing. His hands are hidden from view, so you don't know if they're damaged.

His position near the center of this curve means that viewers can almost never see his face, or all of his body at once. He's hiding.

The cluster of center columns means that most of your view of him when looking straight on is like seeing him through jail bars.

The absence of rubble from the wall makes it unclear if he has just stopped momentarily, or if he gave up on widening this hole a long time ago; the seated pose also makes it clear that at least for the moment, he has stopped even trying to escape.

The curved shape of the ceiling isn't appropriate to the architecture of the actual origin of this story, but I chose it in order to make the labyrinth feel more compressed and to put the inside in a deep enough shadow that the crack would always shine with bright light in comparison, blanking out the view from the minotaur's side unless you look very very closely.

We are here to live joyously and freely and experience all that this world has to offer that calls to us. We are here to thrive.