The first inhabitants of St. Lucia, or the Arawaks, first named the country as Iouanalao meaning the ‘Land of the Iguana’. Tracing back to that time, we can say that species of the St. Lucian green Iguana is so rampant to the island making it an emblem to represent the area. One important thing about the importance of this Green Iguana on St. Lucia is that this is their largest land mammal and is found on no other island.
At the present time, sadly, this Iguana is a rare spot to the island and even the local people know little about this animal that once dominate their country. There are several threats including human activities and predation that leads to its dredging condition right now and those will be discussed in the later part of this article.
An Interesting Specie
Scientists classified the St. Lucian Iguana as a species of a Green Iguana having the scientific name Iguana iguana. This is a wild type of green iguana and is locally known as ‘Iyanola’. Scientists concluded that this rare Iguana is unique specie among the family of lizards, and is only found on the island along the North East coast. Adults are light green in color with black stripes. Adult males possess a dewlap—a piece of black skin hanging in their necks that are used to attract females when inflated. Also, the St. Lucian Green Iguanas tackle their opponents using their long, hard tail.
Bearing the title of being the largest land mammal in St. Lucia, the green iguana can grow up to six feet long. What’s interesting is that they are also excellent swimmers! No doubt, they might have been very adapted to the environment for it was studied that they have been here even before we existed; more or less half a million years.
Threats to St. Lucian Green Iguana
Just like other threatened species in the world, the St. Lucian Green Iguana is on a serious fight for survival. There are animal hunters in St. Lucia that still hunt iguanas for food. Though this activity is not widely practice in the island, still it is considered to be a great threat to their number. Another factor considered to have caused iguanas’ decreasing population is predation. Dogs are the only animal in St. Lucia that kills adult iguanas. Cats are also killing young and newly hatched iguanas.
Beaches are of great importance to iguanas for they lay and nest their eggs there. Sand mining in St. Lucia also accounts for a great loss in their number; not just for Green Iguanas but for turtles as well.
Image credit: http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/
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