Galapagos Islands Land Iguanas and Marine Iguanas

In 1835 when the HMS Beagle brought Charles Darwin to the Galapagos, there where so many land iguanas that the crews found it hard to find an open spot where to start a camping place, this because of the many iguanas that lived around.

Today these big and yellow creatures stay abundant in just three islands, Santa Fe, South Plaza and Fernandina. Once again the ones to blame on for their reduction of population are the humans. In Baltra Island the bored US soldiers from World War II used the galapagos island land iguanas as military targets.

The introduction of some domestic animals caused a dramatically reduction of their population. The land iguanas where very common in Santa Cruz Island but in the 1970's some wild dogs killed mostly all of them. As the turtles the iguanas are raised in captivity in the Charles Darwin Research Station, and then released to their native islands.

The iguanas or Conolopholus subcristatus are an endemic species from the Galapagos, there are some different kind of species that are studied by the biologists. Even in the smaller and more arid islands the iguanas eat thorny cactus which evolved and now they grew their fruits out of the reach of the herbivores.

Galapagos Marine Iguanas

The endemic marine Iguana from the Galapagos is the only lizard that lives in the sea, but even with their abilities to swim and feed in the marine bottom, it still keeps to be a land mammal.

The marine iguanas once in water uses their specially adapted tail to dive at least 40 feet (12 meters) below sea level, where they will stay up to 30 minutes eating seaweeds before resurfacing. Before they dive they need to take some sun so they could increase their body temperature up to 36º C / 97º F.

Once they dive into the ocean they grapple themselves to the bottom with their toes and graze the seaweeds that cover the rocky bottom. Because of the Humboldt's Current that flows to the north a long the pacific coast line of South America the sea is amazingly cold.

As a consequence to the cold marine currents the iguanas could lose as much as 20º C / 54º F of their body temperature in long time dives, so they will need another tanning session when they are back to the surface.

The Galapagos marine iguanas have developed some special glands of excretion of the salt to allow them to get rid of the excess of salt while they fed themselves under the water. These glands are visible when they "sneeze" as a excrete that expel the salt as a spray.

The galapagos´s marine iguana has some few natural enemies. It is not hunted by man because the high concentration of salt in their meat, for that reason their number has not reduce unlikely their relatives, the land iguana.

The biologist estimate that the total population of marine iguanas in the Galapagos is between 200 00 to 300 000. They could be seen in abundance in many locations, giving an unlikely scene from the prehistoric years.