New iguana needs protection
A basking Saban black iguana optimising its heat uptake by adopting a curved position when the sun is low on the horizon on the Windward coast of Saba.
Photo courtesy M. Breuil/CC-BY 4.0.
One of the recently discovered melanistic (black) iguanas on rocks close to the sea on the island of Saba.
Photo courtesy M. Breuil/CC-BY 4.0.
The recently discovered Saban black iguana (Iguana melanoderma), known only from Saba and Montserrat islands in the Lesser Antilles (lying within the Eastern Caribbean), already appears to be threatened by unsustainable hunting pressures. It also faces competition from and the threat of hybridisation with invasive alien iguanas originating from parts of the South and Central American mainland.