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Cyclura nubila, also known as the Cuban Rock Iguana or Cuban Iguana is an endangered species of lizard of the genus Cyclura. It is the largest of the West Indian rock iguanas, one of the most globally endangered groups of lizards in the world. This species is one of the largest native land vertebrates in the Caribbean and contains one subspecies found on the "Sister Islands": Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. Primarily herbivorous, the Cuban Iguana is distributed throughout the rocky southern coastal areas of mainland Cuba and its surrounding islets with a feral population thriving on Isla Magueyes, Puerto Rico. Unlike most iguanids, females guard their nest sites and often nest in proximity to Cuban Crocodiles. It makes its home within or in close proximity to prickly-pear cacti. Although the wild population is in decline due to predation by feral animals and habitat loss because of human agricultural development, recovery is ongoing by means of in-situ and ex-situ captive-breeding and headstarting conservation programs. The species was involved in a study concerning evolution and animal communication and its captive-breeding program served as a model for other endangered lizards in the Caribbean.
[edit] Taxonomy The generic name (Cyclura) is derived from the Ancient Greek cyclos (κύκλος) meaning "circular" and ourá (οὐρά) meaning "tail", after the thick-ringed tail characteristic of all Cyclura.[2] Its specific name, nubila, is Latin for "gray" but in this instance is a Latinized form of the name of John Edward Gray, the British zoologist who first described the Cuban Rock Iguana as a species in 1831 as opposed to the animal's base color.[3][4] Its closest relatives are the Blue Iguana (Cyclura lewisi) and the Northern Bahamian Rock Iguana (Cyclura cychlura), the three species having diverged from a common ancestor some three million years ago.[5] In 1977, biologists recognized Cyclura nubila as a species with two subspecific forms, the aforementioned Blue Iguana (Cyclura nubila lewisi) and the Lesser Caymans Iguana (Cyclura nubila caymanensis), despite an admitted lack of scalation counts.[4][6] After years of research comparing scale counts on the heads of Caribbean iguanas, including those found on Little Cayman, Cayman Brac, Grand Cayman, Cuba, and the Bahamas, as well as mitochondrial DNA analysis performed by Dr. Catherine Malone of Texas A&M University to re-examine the phylogeography of the different species revealed this original classification to be inaccurate and currently only one subspecies is recognized: the Lesser Caymans Iguana (Cyclura nubila caymeanensis).[4][7][8][9] [edit] Anatomy and morphology The Cuban Iguana is a large species of lizard with a typical body length of 46 centimeters (18 in), when measured from the snout to the vent (or base of the tail).[4] Animals in excess of 1.6 meters (5.2 ft) (when measured from snout to tip of the tail) have been recorded at the Wildlife Sanctuary within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (GTMO), Cuba.[10][11] Males are larger than females, with skin color ranging from dark gray to brick red, whereas females are more olive green, and have dark stripes or bands.[12] Limbs are black with pale brown oval spots.[12] Young animals tend to be uniformly dark brown or green with faint darker striping or mottling in the form of five to ten diagonal traverse bands on the body.[12] These bands blend in with the body color as the iguana ages.[12] The Cuban Iguana's eyes have a golden iris and red sclera giving them excellent vision, with the ability to detect shapes and motions at long distances.[13] As these iguanas have only a few rods or photoreceptor cells they have poor vision in low-light conditions, which accounts for their diurnal activity. These lizards also compensate for this by having cells called "double cones" which give them sharp color vision and enable them to see ultraviolet wavelengths.[13] This ability is highly useful when basking so the animal can ensure that it absorbs enough sunlight in the forms of UVA and UVB to produce vitamin D.[14] Cuban Iguanas have evolved a white photosensory organ on the top of their heads called the parietal eye, also called the third eye, pineal eye or pineal gland.[13] This "eye" has only a rudimentary retina and lens and cannot form images.[13] It is however sensitive to changes in light and dark and can detect movement.[13] Primarily herbivorous, Cuban Iguanas are presented with a problem for osmoregulation: as plant matter contains more potassium than animal matter and as it has less nutritional content per gram than meat, more of it must be eaten to meet the lizard's metabolic needs.[15] As the Cuban Iguana is not capable of creating liquid urine more concentrated than its bodily fluids, it excretes nitrogenous wastes as urate salts in the same manner as birds, through a salt gland. [15] As a result, the Cuban Iguana has developed this lateral nasal gland to supplement renal salt secretion by expelling excess potassium and sodium chloride.[15] [edit] DietLike all Cyclura species the Cuban Iguana derives 95% of its diet from consuming leaves, flowers and fruits from as many as 30 different plant species such as wild thyme, thistle, tuna (Opuntia stricta), fruits and flowers of black mangrove, (Avicennia germinans) leaves of red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle), olives, and various grasses.[16] Additionally, 50% of the large intestine of the Cuban Iguana consists of a colony of nematodes, which contribute to the digestion of its high cellulose diet.[12][16] This diet is rarely supplemented by animal matter, although individuals have been observed eating the corpses of birds, fish and crabs.[17] [edit] MatingMale Cuban Iguanas have femoral pores on their thighs, which are used to release pheromones, females lack these pores making the animals sexually dimorphic.[18] Sexual maturity is reached at an age of two to three years for these animals.[3] Although observed as being gregarious while immature, the males become aggressive, and vigorously defend territories in competition for females.[16] Females seem to remain more tolerant of each other, except after laying their eggs.[12][16] Mating occurs in May and June, with individual clutches of 3–30 eggs usually laid in June or July, in nests excavated in pockets of earth exposed to the sun after the Cuban Crocodiles lay their eggs and away from where the adult populations live.[3][12][16] According to field research, the females return to the same nesting sites annually to deposit their eggs in the same nests.[16] The nests are built in proximity to each other and this may be due to the fact that suitable nesting sites are becoming rare.[12][16] At the San Diego Zoo, a female built a nest at the end of a long chamber she excavated in the sand.[12] She stood near it for weeks vigorously defending it by shaking her head and hissing at anyone who approached it, demonstrating that these animals may guard their nest sites.[12] [edit] Distribution The Cuban Iguana is naturally distributed on Cuba and throughout as many as four thousand islets surrounding the Cuban mainland in rocky coastal areas.[4][12][17] Relatively safe populations are found on some islets along the north and south coasts and in isolated protected areas on the mainland.[3] These include Guanahacabibes Biosphere Reserve in the west, Desembarco del Granma National Park, Hatibonico Wildlife Refuge, Punta Negra-Quemados Ecological Reserve, and Delta del Cauto Wildlife Refuge, all in eastern Cuba.[17] Because of this wide distribution, accurate information about the number of distinct subpopulations of Cuban Rock Iguanas is unable to be determined.[4][17] The population on the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay has been estimated at 2,000-3,000 individuals and the animals are treated well and protected by US Forces stationed at the base.[3][10][11] An unusual incident occurred when a detainee in the prison assaulted a guard with a bloody tail torn from a Cuban Iguana in May 2005.[19][20] The Cuban Iguana makes its burrow in proximity to cacti or thistle, sometimes even within the cactus itself.[16] These thorny plants offer protection and their fruit and flowers offer the iguanas food.[12][16][21] In areas without cacti, the lizards also make their burrows in dead trees, hollow logs, and caves.[12][21] In the mid 1960s a small group of Cuban Iguanas was released from a zoo on Isla Magueyes, southwest of Puerto Rico, forming an independent free-ranging feral population.[22][23] As of the year 2000, there has been talk of removing or relocating this population of iguanas. This feral population is the source for 90% of the captive Cuban Iguanas held in private collections and was the source for part of a study on animal communication and evolution.[24] The study compared the head-bob displays from the source population on Cuba with these animals on Isla Magueyes.[24] The durations and pauses were longer with the feral population by as much as 350%.[24] By way of comparison, the Blue Iguana of Grand Cayman (a species which diverged from the Cuban Iguana) differed from those of the animals on Cuba by only about 20%.[24] The rapid change in display structure between the colony of animals on Isla Magueyes and those on Cuba illustrated the potential of small founding population size as a catalyst to evolution with regard to communication or display, in this case the difference was only by six generations at most.[24] [edit] Conservation The Cuban Iguana is well established in captivity, both in public and private collections.[14] Many zoological parks and private individuals have established these animals in captive breeding programs, minimizing the demand for wild-caught specimens for the pet trade.[14] However, in the wild this is a vulnerable species found on the IUCN Red List.[3] The total population of this subspecies in Cuba is estimated at between 40,000 and 60,000 individuals and the population on Isla Magueyes is estimated at over 1,000.[3] According to Dr. Allison Alberts, an ecologist with the San Diego Zoo and lead researcher in Cuba, among the many wildlife species at GTMO, “The Cuban Iguana is one of the largest, undoubtedly the most visible, and certainly the most charismatic. It seems that no one completes a tour of duty at GTMO without getting to know these prehistoric-looking giants.”[11] [edit] Reasons for declineIn general the species is in decline, more quickly on the mainland than in other areas.[3] The Cuban Iguana is now absent from the northeastern Havana coast, the Hicacos peninsula and Cay Largo, where it was known to be very abundant some 30-40 years ago.[3] The Cuban mainland populations have been declining at a rate of greater than 1% per year for the last ten years.[3] Populations of Cuban Iguanas are being impacted by direct predation by feral animals such as rats, cats, and feral pigs which eat their eggs.[3] Their habitat in some areas is being degraded by overgrazing of farm animals and development.[3][7] [edit] Recovery efforts In 1985 the Cuban government issued a commemorative peso depicting a Cuban Iguana on the "head" side of the coin in an attempt to raise awareness for this animal. In 1993 the San Diego Zoo developed an experimental program known as "head-starting" for newly hatched Cuban Iguanas with funding from the National Science Foundation’s Conservation and Restoration Biology Program.[11][25] "Head-starting" is a process by which the Cuban Iguana's eggs are hatched in an incubator and the animals are protected and fed for the first 20 months of their lives.[11][25] The purpose is to get the animals to a size where they are more capable of fleeing from or fighting off predators.[11][25] This technique was originally used to protect hatchling sea turtles, Galapagos Land Iguanas, and Ctenosaura bakeri on the island of Utila, however Dr Alberts used it for the first time on a Cyclura species with the Cuban Iguana.[25] The purpose was to not only help the Cuban Iguana population, but also to act as an experiment as the population was not as critically endangered as other species of Cyclura.[25] The program proved successful with the iguanas reacting to predators, foraging for food, and behaving like their wild-born counterparts.[25][26] This program has been implemented with great success on other critically endangered species of Cyclura and Ctenosaura throughout the West Indies and Central America, notably the Jamaican Iguana, Grand Cayman Blue Iguana, Ricord's Iguana, Allen Cays Iguana, San Salvador Iguana, and Anegada Iguana.[11][25] [edit] References
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