Reproduction Sexual maturity likely occurs at 5 to 7 years of age. The breeding season is from May to August, as dominant males fight other males to gain mating rights with females. Before mating, the winning male courts the female. To initiate mating, they touch tongues, rub snouts and scrape chins. When the female accepts his advances or is too tired to outrun the male, he climbs on her back, scratching her and sometimes lightly biting her neck.
Copulation is a relatively quick affair.
Six to eight weeks later, in the months of July through September, Komodo females lay their clutch of 15-30 eggs. The female usually lays them in a burrow dug into a hillside or in the sand. Females rarely guard the nests and, if so, only for a short amount of time. The eggs incubate for eight to nine months, and hatch at the beginning of the dry season in April. Life Cycle Hatchlings are multicolored, with different parts of their body in brown, yellow, orange and red, covered by a pattern of black and white speckles, stripes and bands.