Reeder Custom Guns - An invasive species for most of y'all who see them...

but here they are an endangered species, especially up on the Caribbean coast where folks are convinced that their eggs are aphrodisiacal. We have a substantial populations of them, however, just a couple blocks away along the river (creek). Not too often, but they sometimes show up in the park across from our house.

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When I was growing up in the Amazon Basin we put a lot of these down. They are hard on certain fruit trees and also have a tendency to "harvest" eggs and chickens. That long tail they can use like a whip and cut a dog to ribbons or kill chickens with it. BUT, as mentioned, they're endangered 'round here, plus all hunting is now forbidden (don't get me started). I found it fascinating to watch her crawl behind the branch to hide like a squirrel will do. Can't camouflage that tail, though. We also have a sizeable colony of agouti over along the same river and the occasional squirrel (brilliantly red, usually - like some mean kid got hold of 'em and used his mom's hair dye kit on it). The iguanas seem quite active these days, in spite of the "cold" winter season we're in (between the Canal and the Equator).

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I'm a peaceful man and prefer the pursuit of peaceful sports. Those involving teams and balls of any sort tend to be deleterious to one's body and promote violence by both spectators and participants.

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critters similar to that one get in the pool area. I have no idea how they got in as there was a mesh fence all around the pool, even covering it but every now and then we would have one of those crawling up a wall. They would be about half that size and normally dark green or black. They would jump down when we got close to them and run like hell. Don't know what species they were but we would see a dozen a year or so. They didn't hurt anything but freaked out visitors or family from states where they didn't have critters like that, especially in the house.

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https://youtu.be/7GQssYyJcF8

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And the locals would hunt them and cook them. Saw one that was at least 4 foot long that ran in front of us. Wife freaked out, I just laughed and wished I had my single six on me.

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although we shot a good number of them over the years. The ground dwelling tigu on the other hand was much better eating than the macaws I got on the same trip. The iguanas can reach impressive sizes for a "mere lizard". The largest we got was around 5 foot long, 3 to 4 foot were ore common. The one in the pictures is close to 4 foot, but the male my wife saw the other day is a bit longer and much heavier. Since we aren't raising chickens or fruit trees and aren't starving, I'll leave them alone. If society here ends up like the republic to the east of us, well... I've got a pellet rifle or two that'd make short work of them.

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south of Acapulco. We almost ran over one in Sanibel, FL, just south of where Gary used to run. We all screamed in the truck, were not going all that fast and just missed it. You run over a squirrel there and they want to take you to jail. They have these big swamp bunnies all over too. Maybe the Iguana eats them?

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When those big lizards run, really haul, like crossing the road, they hold their tail up really high. My daughter said like a velociraptor on Jurassic Park!

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One day I heard the chickens fussing, stepped into the wash room which overlooked the chicken pen and saw a decent sized iguana that had just come under the barbed wire fence into the yard. I grabbed the old Glenfield 22 that we kept back there for such things, sighted in at the base of his neck and squeezed off the shot. He flipped over backwards onto his back, flipped over onto his belly and was off into the woods like a flash, my dogs giving him plenty of encouragement along the way. I was surprised as I'd expected to anchor him with that shot, and he didn't seem much phased.

Fast forward six months or so and another fuss by the chickens and I look out and see a broad side iguana near the fence line. I don't recall where I shot him, in the head I think, but he stayed right there. When I went over to look him over I found a long scar along his belly.

That was before I got my first glasses and didn't realize I needed them. Putting two and two together the sequence must have been more or less as follows. The iguana came into the yard and raised up on his front legs to get a better look. I mistook the glimpse of his belly as his neck and the bullet zipped right along, leaving a nice scratch that healed up pretty good. He didn't learn, came back and this time I had a better look and was able to put the shot where I intended, ending his endeavors to get into the chicken pen.

Later on I finally got glasses and was amazed! I'd NO idea you could see individual leaves on the trees at a distance instead of just a blur of green!

Anyway, they are fascinating creatures and I'm glad to see them making a comeback here, although I hope they don't get so overpopulated that they do irreparable harm to the bird life.

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An invasive species for most of y'all who see them...

back years ago when we lived in Florida we had

Meanwhile, back in Florida...

When I was in Panama, they called them tree chickens.

Never ate an iguana...

I saw one every bit of five foot in Mexico

Our family was talking about it and I forgot

They can really cover ground!