Iguanas in South Florida

We spent Christmas on our boat in No Name Harbor, in Bill Baggs St Park on Key Biscayne,FL.

Each morning we would row our dingy over to the Mangrove trees to see the Iguanas. This is one of the biggest ones. They can be 2-3 ft, but the Park Ranger said there was one close to 4ft. I think this might have been it.

Here’s a close up of it’s face. I am guessing this is a male. He has a pretty big dewlap and spines. There were several like this one, but many more smaller green ones. I wasn’t able to capture the vivid color. They seemed more skittish than the smaller ones.

I don’t know much about Iguanas. I have read it’s hard to tell them apart until they are older.

Here’s a close-up of its face.

This one was sitting on a rock to get warm. We had a few cool days but the sun warmed the rocks up.

The Iguanas are not native to FL. They are probably the offspring of pets that were released and since they have no natural enemies…they are taking over. I guess they do a lot of damage to gardens etc. They are herbivores, they eat plants. We saw them sitting on the “fenders” that guide you under bridges and on the hedges in peoples yards. I thought they were kind of neat and how much fun it would be to have them hanging around, until I found out they had become such a problem.