Galapagos land iguana

Conolophus subcristatus

Notes:

This particular specimen of land iguana, one of many seen while in the Galapagos, was encountered on a hike on North Seymour Island during the afternoon on the day of my arrival in the archipelago. It appeared most curious and wanted to move toward my camera when I held it low to the ground. Perhaps it was seeing its own reflection in my lens. While not appearing truly aggressive, its curiosity was certainly aroused. This one appeared to be close to three feet in length from nose to tail. I used a 70-300mm zoom lens at 220mm for the first image and at 86mm for the second. The third image is digitally cropped from the second image.

Species ID Suggestions

8 Comments

Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos 10 years ago

Beautiful, Rustic41! Your spottings also show that you were there in the rainy season; the iguanas had more than tough cactus pads to feed on! - A significant historic detail: It seems that North Seymour originally did not have a Land Iguana population. Individuals from the South Seymour/Baltra population were introduced there in the 1930ies because it was clear they they did not do well on their home island, mainly because of food competition by introduced feral goats and predation by introduced domestic cats, dogs and maybe rats.. Land Iguanas became extinct on Baltra in the 50ies because of that interference. The National Park and CDF then exterminated dogs, cats and goats on Baltra in a decade long effort and about 20 years ago started (re)-introducing to Baltra Land Iguanas originating from North Seymour and bred at the facility on Santa Cruz, They now thrive on Baltra, - in spite of some individuals being run over by airport vehicles, - but that seems to happen very rarely. Airport and army personell have been trained and are supportive. - If interested, follow us through facebook.com/darwinfoundation.