@vividawayâ Randall Munroe is an internet cartoonist who runs the âxkcdâ online comic series, which has run from 2006 up to today, with new comics every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Xkcd isnât an ongoing story, just a series of funny, wholesome, depressing, or oddly scientifically informative comics.
In 2010, Randallâs fiance was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. He didnât share too many details at first, but things tended to bleed into his comics: sometimes funny, sometimes sad.
Often in this time, other cartoonists would write in guest comics for Randall, or heâd put in short filler pieces, to try and fill space while nonstop cancer treatments took up most of his time.
In 2012, he posted a comic called âTwo Yearsâ, about the time since the diagnosis. Itâs the one that hasnât yet been posted here (although parts of it are included in the other comics), and it commemorates some of the things that had happened in the two years since the diagnosis.
There are representations of Randall and his fiance being together for her treatment, worrying together, traveling the world, and getting married. Itâs still depressing, but itâs a lot more hopeful, showing how theyâve still managed to have happy moments together, and things will still get better.
Themes of cancer continued in xkcd, but they increasingly became less about fear and nihilism, and more about hope, or just cool facts related to cancer.
At the top of this post is the comic posted in 2017: Seven Years. In it, Randall and his wife are traveling more, trying to have fun and continue old and new hobbies, with cancer ever-present in the background of it all. At the end, the two of them observe the 2017 solar eclipse, and despite all the uncertainty that comes with the thought of another seven years, agree to watch the 2024 eclipse together too.
There are just about no cancer comics between that one and the most recent comic, the one I posted: Ten Years, written in 2020. Itâs by far the most hopeful of the three in the little series: the two of them are happy, theyâre playing with rabbits and riding on handcarts and going out hiking and stargazing, together. At the end, Ten Years breaks the format with a conversation in which they talk about how unbelievable it is that itâs been so long, and share their worries as well as their hopes. It even ends on a much more lighthearted joke about immortality.
Itâs a good comic. Definitely in my top two comics wherein internet cartoonists express emotions about an illness suffered by their wife.
âThe ten-year cancerversary is traditionally the Cursed Artifact Granting Immortality anniversary.â -Randall Munroe.
So, first thing you need to know is that is a very visibly healthy adult green iguana. Every part of the iguana is sharp. The claws evolved to haul a ten pound lizard up a tree. The spines are like tiny icepicks. The tail is a bullwhip. The teeth evolved to shred leaves, but they'll just as easily shred your flesh. Good luck making a healthy adult iguana do anything they don't wanna. That puts us on our first thing to look at- is the animal capable of defense and getting away, physically? Yes, definitely.
Next thing to know is what does a threatened or scared iguana look like? When an iguana is threatened, it doesn't stand on its hind legs like that; it stands on all fours and puffs itself up to look bigger, aggressively bobs its head (note: head bobbing is a behavior used for a LOT of things, it does need context- for example, they also head bob as part of mating displays), there is hissing, there is tail whipping- iguanas are not subtle creatures. None of this is the behavior of an iguana that feels threatened or is being a threat!
So what does standing like that mean? That's just simple reaching. The iguana sees something they want and is attempting to reach it, and what they want appears to be uppies, because they settle into the human's grip immediately.
Then, we see some GREAT handling from the human. There's really great communication happening between the two of them! The person picks up the iguana very securely- pelvis and pectoral girdles are well supported, and he doesn't grab. (Iguanas typically do NOT like being grabbed around the sides; many of their predators are birds and coming at them from above or gripping the sides is scary!)
As he goes in for the pet, he lets the iguana support their back half on his knee. The hold is secure but not tight; at any point, if the iggy was distressed, they could leave. But they don't- instead, you see them leaning into the pets, actively participating in the behavior. They're not even closing their eyes to block stimulus. They want this to happen.
This is the kind of bond that's possible when you can prove to a big lizard that you're trustworthy, and easily the best iguana video I've seen in a long time. Thank you for tagging me in!
Some green iguana body language resources under the jump!
Barten 2003. Green Iguana Management and Husbandry. Iguana: Journal of the International Iguana Society. I refer to this guy a lot when thinking about iguana behavior because even though the Green Iguana Husbandry issue of Iguana came out 22 years ago, Steve is a member of my herp society and has forgotten more about iguanas than any of us will ever know.
Burghardt 1977. Social behavior in hatchling green iguanas: life at a reptile rookery. Science.
Yes, Burghardt's iguana stuff is older. Yes, it's still highly relevant in the world of reptile ethology. If you can get your hands on a copy of Iguanas of the World, it's amazing how well it holds up.
Kaplan- everything on anapsid.org is at least 10 years old, but that doesn't change how valuable some of it is. Melissa knows her stuff, she just can't have iguanas anymore and unfortunately her health interferes a lot with what she wants to do.
Behavior article collection
Change-Related Stress in Green Iguanas and Other Reptiles
Interpreting Non-Breeding Behaviors in Green Iguanas
Testosterone, Aggression, and Green Iguanas
Köhler 2003. Green Iguana Communication. Iguana: Journal of the International Iguana Society.
Rice et al. 2022. Heads Nods and Boat Bobs: Behavior of Iguana Iguana Is Affected by Environment and Boat Traffic in Riparian Tropical Forest. Biotropica.
Darren Naish wrote a cool blog post for Tetrapod Zoology that's got a lot of social behavior observations! His blogs are always backed up with great sources and evidence.
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