Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Iguana in a tree (4)

The iguana at the airport seems confused and unaware that he should be up in a tree, which is where iguanas spend most of their time. This green iguana is where he belongs, and his coloration is adapted to camouflage him. Not surprisingly, this species is called a green iguana.

My Travelers' Wildlife Guides book on Costa Rica (by Les Beletsky) makes the observation that green iguanas "don't move much, and when they do it's often in slow motion" and that "they are fun to discover, but boring to watch."

One of the readers of this blog left a comment several days ago saying that she thought iguanas were green, so I decided to post this photo to show the difference between the green iguanas and black iguanas. Green iguanas are a little larger than the black iguanas. They grow to 2 meters (6.5 ft) in length. Green iguanas have more prominent scales running down the ridge of their back and dew sacs under their chin.

On our travel photo site, Viva la Voyage, we are showing some photos of what we think is the world's most artistic and impressive cemetery, Recoleta, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Come to the website for a visit.

9 comments:

cieldequimper said...

Nice iguana series!
Happy New Year!

Kate said...

The greenery looks so lush, and the iguana looks very content!

brattcat said...

Maybe green iguanas are too ecologically responsible to fly. They go in for 'greener' transportation.

Dave-CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com said...

Brattcat,
It may be true that green iguanas only use "greener transportation" than airplanes, but the black iguana who walked past the Nature Air poster at the airport could tell the green iguana that Nature Air is already the world's first and only carbon-neutral airline! They plant trees to make up for their emissions.

Sharon said...

I wonder if this where the clothing designers of the old west got the idea to put fringe on those old west jackets!

Julie ScottsdaleDailyPhoto.com said...

I really like iguanas. they have a prehistoric look and are fun to watch.

Judy said...

Six and a half feet!!!! I think I would be running the other way if I saw one. This one is a beauty and you have a good eye to spot it in the tree.

Unknown said...

These 'crested' green iguanas are my favourite, they are so Jurassic! :-)Unfortunatelly not the most common as I haven't seen many and only managed to get one shot at the stunning Sumidero Canyon in Mexico. Have you been there, David?
By the way, it is the Perito Moreno Glaciar on my Travelling header.! :-)

Stefan Jansson said...

Hiding in the great, great snap!

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