Saturday, July 9, 2011

... land iguanas ... galapagos lizards ... big ole things ...

there's something about evolution, that in harsh places, makes things very small or very large .... those are common adaptations of evolution and natural selection .... the galapagos land iguanas, also called galapagos land lizards, are big .... much bigger than you'd think a lizard should be ... our naturalist, alejandro, likened their evolution to the komodo dragons .... they aren't as big, but seem to have grown to their el grande size for the same reason ... because they could ....

these lizards are territorial, particularly during breeding season .... at one point we saw two of them seemingly VERY close together ... alejandro explained, oh no, they have their territories, this one's territory is THIS side of the cactus, that one has claimed THAT side of the cactus .... you won't see either of them on the other side of the cactus ....

drew moved ahead of our group ... kind of fun that way to be the first to spot something new or interesting .... and i saw this :

he looked like he'd tired out, given up, stopped the adventure ... but instead, he had stopped to watch this:

the giant lizard had pulled down a huge piece of prickly pear cactus and we chewing on it ... they use their hand like claws to first knock off all the prickers ... the inside of the cactus looks a lot like watermelon ....

 

 these land iguanas are on many of the islands, with different coloring depending on the island ... this batch is descended from the island of baltras lizards ... they became extinct there when the air force took residence ... but a batch of them were moved to close by north seymour before that extinction .... luckily!




just for a point of reference, every lizard we saw outweighed my dog by about ten pounds ... granted, i have a tiny five pound dog, but those are some big lizards!

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