The earliest stories of a dragon existing in the region circulated widely and attracted considerable attention. But no one visited the island to check the story until official interest was sparked in the early 1910s by stories from Dutch sailors based in Flores in East Nusa Tenggara about a mysterious creature. The creature was allegedly a dragon which inhabited a small island in the Lesser Sunda Islands (the main island of which is Flores).

The non-stinging jellyfish live over there making it an interesting ittinerary. The stingless properties came about when the jellyfishes are trapped inside the lake for probably centuries and because there are almost no major predators in the lake, they start to lose their natural defense. Its brackish water and bottom covered marine green algae host a number of other species.