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It is tempting to call this a Green Iguana, but those do not live in my garden and these do! 🙂 The babies and juveniles of both species are very much alike, so location determines this ID. I see them in my garden a lot! And their parents & big brothers & sisters walk around on my roof and climb the trees! 🙂
See more of my many photos of this species in my GALLERY: Black Spiny-tailed Iguana. And oh yeah, the scientific name is: Ctenosaura similis.
¡Pura Vida!
I’m seeing more in my yard this year and simply can’t resist photographing! 🙂
And three more shots of the same iguana . . .
Continue reading “Handsome Young Iguana”
Well — he’s an immature Green Iguana “I think,” but the immature Black Iguana is also greenish, so he could technically be either one (though I think the face looks more like the green). But the last adult iguana I had here was the Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, so maybe that’s more likely. 🙂 Juveniles are difficult to ID for certain!
This one just happened to be in my casita’s gutter when I was on my morning garden walk the other day. I don’t see iguanas around my house very often, but when I do they often climb the trees to get away from me which makes it easy for a young one like this to jump over on the house roof. I doubt they find much to eat around my house which is why I seldom see one. A full-grown Iguana is more than twice the size of this one! (Green or Black) 🙂
. . . in my Higueron or Strangler Fig Tree (Big Ficus). The tree just lost its leaves again which makes it a little easier to see birds or other wildlife like this, though with so many tight limbs it is like “he is behind bars!” 🙂 And this tree has few open spaces where I could have gotten a clear view of his whole body, plus he continued higher up where I could not see him at all. This variety of iguana is the only kind I’ve seen in my yard or anywhere else in Atenas, while many of the lodges I visit also have the Green Iguana which is more colorful but with the same behavior high in trees and sometimes on the ground. See my separate photo galleries:
The other morning just after breakfast I noticed this immature Black or Spiny-tailed Iguana climbing up my Guarumo or Cecropia Tree for the flowers which the toucans also like to eat. Notice no stripes, no spines on his tail (as on full-grow adults) and only barely starting spines on his back which is typical of the adolescent or young adult Black Iguanas. If he were still a baby, he would be green like the Green Iguanas! But at this age I’m sure of my ID! 🙂 We do have both of those iguanas here and this one is the largest of all our lizards.
The Black or Spiny-tailed Iguana, Ctenosaura similis (Wikipedia article) are found throughout Central America & Mexico and in some Columbian islands in both the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. They have been introduced in Florida, but not native there. They are the largest of the two types of iguanas we have here. See my Black Spiny-tailed Iguana GALLERY for more photos. Its been a while since I’ve had one in my yard though they are possible anywhere, even in downtown Atenas! 🙂
Continue reading “Iguana in the Guarumo”