Rhinoceros Iguana

The Rhinoceros Iguana is native to the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and The Dominican Republic) and several surrounding West Indian Islands. These... more

by Miroslava Jurcik

Title

Rhinoceros Iguana

Artist

Miroslava Jurcik

Medium

Photograph

Description

The Rhinoceros Iguana is native to the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and The Dominican Republic) and several surrounding West Indian Islands. These iguanas live in areas of open scrub, among rocks and cactus thickets. They can also be found in dry forests to subtropical moist forests. This species is primarily found near coastlines, however, human expansion has forced many populations to retreat further inland. These iguanas are active during the day, spending the nights in rock crevices and dug out burrows.
Rhinoceros iguanas were common and widespread until the early 1950s, but accurate information concerning current population estimates on Hispaniola is lacking. Unpublished data, based on opportunistic surveys, are available for a few localities but are inadequate for extrapolation to other areas facing different levels of disturbance, particularly in Haiti.
Habitat destruction, due to extraction of hardwoods and fuelwood, charcoal production, agriculture, livestock grazing and limestone mining, represents the major threat to rhinoceros iguanas in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti. In the Dominican Republic about 13% of the human population occupy dry forest regions. These areas are also the most economically depressed and exploitation of forest habitats for charcoal and fuelwood represent important sources of income. About 75-80% of the total national demand for these products originates from dry forest habitats. In the Dominican Republic, roughly 35% of rhinoceros iguana habitat has been lost, and approximately 75% of what remains is disturbed. Both figures are much higher for Haiti.
Other important threats are predation by feral dogs, cats, mongoose and pigs on adults, juveniles and eggs, and illegal hunting of subadults and adults for food and local trade. The use of iguanas for food in Haiti is extreme in rural areas where iguanas are conspicuous enough that local people are familiar with them. International trade of wild animals from Hispaniola, a conservation problem until the mid 1980s, has been controlled in the Dominican Republic under CITES since 1987, but no such control exists in Haiti.
This picture was taken at Taronga Zoo , Sydney !

Uploaded

August 12th, 2017