Day 402#: Jamaican Iguana
Today's animal of the day is the Jamaican Iguana (Cyclura collei)!
Photo credit: Chalon Boesel
Also known as Colley's iguana, this herbivorous species of lizard can only be found on the island of Jamaica. They are the second-largest land animal native to Jamaica, with only the Jamaican boa being larger. Males can get up to 16.9 inches long, while the females tend to be slightly smaller and only get up to 14.9 inches long. They come in a variety of colors, such as green, brownish, and sometimes even a sort of bluish color. Occasionally, they can appear to be a red color; however, this is the result of females digging their nests in the reddish-brown soil of the Hellshire Hills region in the southeastern portion of Jamaica and is not their true coloration. Their bodies are covered in light olive-green spots as well as some dark triangular stripes, and like many other iguanas, they have a row of spiky scales running down their spines.
Photo credit: Jamaican Iguana Recovery Program
The species was first described in 1845 by British zoologist John Edward Gray. For some reason, Gray decided to name the species "Colley's iguana" in honor of someone, but he didn't mention in any of his notes who this Colley person was, so to this day we have no idea who this species is named after. They were once commonly seen across the entirety of Jamaica, as well as on a couple of the nearby islets. However, today the species is found only in the aforementioned Hellshire Hills, and has gone locally extinct everywhere else on the island. The reason for their decline was the introduction of mongooses to the island, which were released by colonists in the hopes that they'd help control the rats that the colonists had also brought, but by accident this time.
Photo credit: Lacey Underall
Unfortunately, the mongooses decided that baby iguanas and other native wildlife tasted better than rats and were easier to catch too. As a result, the Jamaican iguana's population plummeted until in 1948 it was actually believed that the species was full-on extinct! That was until 1990, when a live adult male was captured after it had been attacked by a dog. Thankfully, the individual survived and was taken to the Hope Zoo in order to recover, and shortly after, more iguanas were discovered hiding in the forests of the Hellshire Hills. I should mention that in 1970 a hunter did stumble across the carcass of a recently deceased iguana while hunting for wild pigs, but the species wasn't declared "not extinct" until the live specimens were found in 1990.
While the species wasn't gone yet, they were still on the brink of extinction since there were only 50 adult individuals left in the wild. A collaboration of twelve zoos across the world worked together to donate funds for the Hope Zoo in Jamaica to create a breeding facility for these iguanas so that the juveniles could be raised in a predator-free environment before being released once they were too big for the mongooses to eat. Conservationists also began working on culling the invasive mongoose population, since they still posed a threat to any new baby iguanas born in the wild, as well as to many other native species. While these mongooses still exist in Jamaica and are still a major problem, the overall population of Jamaican iguana is believed to be somewhere between 500 and 600 adult individuals! Zoos outside of Jamaica have also begun their own captive breeding programs for this species, with the Indianapolis Zoo becoming the first to successfully breed them in 2006. This is great news for the species and significantly increases the likelihood of this species making a full recovery, especially if we can continue to remove the invasive mongooses.
Photo credit: Lincoln Park Zoo
Their story is pretty similar to that of the La Gomera Giant Lizard, which I covered a few days ago. I'd love to say it was a coincidence that both of these island-dwelling lizard species where so heavily hunted by invasive species that they were thought to have gone extinct, but sadly this is a pretty common occurance. Invasive species wreak havoc on island ecosystems because the creature that evolved there have been separated from the mainland ecosystem for so long that they usually have no defenses against these alien predators. Also, islands are small so there's less places for them to hide. Moral of the story: if you love wildlife keep your cats inside and releasing more invasive species to deal with pre-existing invasive species is a horrible idea.
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