COMMON IGUANA 
The common iguana is well known throughout tropical South America for 
its white, chickenlike meat, which is an important source of native food. 
This lizard is a pale, greenish-gray color, marked with black bars on the 
sides. The females display a somewhat darker hue, while the young show 
patches of light green. A striking characteristic is the row of soft, leathery, 
lancelike spines covering its neck and back. These creatures may weigh 
as much as thirty pounds, yet despite this weight, they spend most of their 
time in trees where they balance themselves on slender branches with 
their forelegs dangling down on the side in a slovenly, nonchalant manner. 
A peculiarity of this species is a large, circular shield beneath the eardrum. 
Though largely herbivorous, they also like to eat young birds, rats, 
mice and worms. The young scurry about in search of insects and grubs and 
are even capable of catching flies on the wing. 
Common iguanas often mistake telegraph poles for trees, clustering on 
them in great numbers and nodding gravely as a train passes. 
They doze in the trees above a river bank. If startled, they dive into 
the water, sometimes from a great height. They swim swiftly — the only 
water animals in their habitat capable of out-distancing them are the croco- 
dilians. 
The common iguana makes its home in a burrow, dug horizontally in 
the riverbank. Twenty-four eggs are laid each spring and hatch in May. 
The contents are mainly yolk and therefore useless for coating meringue 
pies, but they are widely used by the natives of South America who cook 
them and eat them fried, or pickled and dried. 
These creatures are prepared for market by tying their hind legs to¬ 
gether with their own tendons. Occasionally iguanas arrive in New York 
in this manner. Despite their weeks of discomfort, they behave in a per¬ 
fectly normal manner when released. 
The habits of iguanas have been studied in some detail by Barbour, 
Ramsden, Noble, Grant and other workers who have concerned themselves 
with neotropical reptiles. 
86 
