You can’t get much farther away from the Caribbean than Fiji Island in the South Pacific. Like, they’re only separated by the widest ocean in the world.
So how does Fiji wind up with two iguana species?
These lizards have gotten kind of rare, so the Fiji government protects them.
You’d think there’d be some iguanas living on islands between Central America and Fiji, but no one’s ever seen any.
Just another mystery of Creation.
Behold the chuckwalla, a nice big lizard. The one in the video is enjoying a feast of chopped vegetables and cheeses that some thoughtful human provided him.
The chuckwalla lives in North America’s hottest deserts, where it eats bits of cactus. The chuckwalla is edible for human beings, a fact which has occasionally saved a life. When threatened, this lizard ducks into a crack in the rock and inflates himself, making it just about impossible to pull him out.
God creates the darnedest things. He creates them for His own pleasure. There aren’t enough people who get lost in the desert to justify the trouble of creating the chuckwalla. This lizard can be domesticated, but then you have the trouble of keeping him hot enough. Like most members of the iguana family, the chuckwalla is smart enough to adjust to you and become friendly with you.
No scientific committee would have ever conceived of a large, edible lizard whose primary defense is self-inflation. Science fiction writers never thought of it. For really cool ideas that no one else ever had, you have to go to God.
And this is Mr. Nature signing off… Enjoy your Sabbath rest, everybody.