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Ctenosaura similis
A juvenile black spiny-tailed iguana spotted in the Rincón de la Vieja National Park, Costa Rica, on the way to La Cangreja waterfall. Green patterned body, no dorsal spines, brownish banded-tail. About 50 cm long including tail.
Dry forest, near water.
7 Comments
Thanks for your comment Rivu!
very bright color and it contrasted with the background wonderfully..
Thanks for the extra info Carolina! While the mature individuals are quite distinct it's the juveniles that pose problems. I found the following bit of info:
http://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/ig...
"It's easy to confuse immature Black and Green Iguanas. Both are green and both bear black bands on the body and tail... [ ]The fold of skin hanging beneath the Green Iguana's throat runs lengthwise while the Black Iguana's runs across the body". Not sure I can see that on my pics :-)
Well I don't know about a specific criteria, but I distinguish green iguanas from black tailed, because of it colors and also because green iguanas have a big circular scale under their tympanum.
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/556... But I could be wrong!
And if yours is a Black spiny-tailed, it was about to become a juvenile, because they are more like greyish when juvenile :)
Thank you Carolina! Indeed the body pattern and banding look very similar to that of the juvenile pic of Ctenosaura similis in the Wikipedia article. I'll change the ID. Do you know by any chance of specific criteria to identify/distinguish these juvenile iguanas?
It looks more like a young Black spiny-tailed iguana to me (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctenosaura_...)
This is a re-posting from yesterday as something went wrong with the original post as I edited for ID. Thank you alicelongmartin for the suggestion!