Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Iguana Info

Hi Ms. Barrett,
I answered the questions from the video about marine iguanas.

The marine is only found on the Galapagos Islands. They are usually found on rocky shores, in mangrove swamps, or on beaches. There are approximately 200,000-300,000 marine iguanas left in the world. You can tell the difference between a male and a female because males grow larger than the females and they are also more brightly colored. Males have shades of red and green, while the females are dark gray to black. For most of the day they will be in the water. An average dive lasts for about 5-10 minutes, but they can last underwater for up to an hour. The marine iguana will sneeze in the salt water to get rid of the salt in their body. While they are in the cold water, being cold-blooded, they loose 10 degrees Celsius of their original body heat.

When they come on land the marine iguanas become inactive. This is because they cannot sustain exercise for a long period of time. They will sit on the lava rocks to restore the lost body heat from the ocean. At night the marine iguanas will all huddle together to conserve their body heat during the night. The purpose of the marine iguana's claws are to grip onto rocks. On land, it is to keep them form being blown away by the surf, and in the water it is to keep them in one place as they feed on algae.

During the mating season, their will be battles between the males for nesting places. The two competing males will bob their heads and then charge at each other, trying to push the other backwards. The battle will end when one of the iguanas either runs away or lies flat on its belly as a sign of surrender, and it will usually take 5 hours before one does. After the iguanas have found a place to nest (a soft sandy place) the female will lay around 34 eggs the size of tennis balls. Later the eggs will hatch and the baby iguanas will be born.

The marines iguanas' population is being threatened because of introduce species. Their natural enemies were many birds, including the Galapagos Hawk, Lava Heron, and the Striated Heron. Its newest enemies are the rat, cat, and dog. Each of the introduced species feeds on an iguana at a different stage of its life. The rat will eat the eggs, the cat will eat the babies, and the dog will eat both the babies, and the full grown adults. Scientists say that if we don't do anything about the declining of the marine iguana population, they could eventually die out.

Jeffrey
Period 1

Wow, Jeff! Very impressive! Excellent work on the marine iguanas. I waited very patiently to get video of one of the iguanas sneezing!