Rhinocerus Iguana, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
The resort houses a few of these large lizards in a caged-in area. I don’t normally like to photograph creatures in confined quarters but made an exception in this case since these are pretty restricted in their territory and it was very unlikely that I would be encountering one in the wild. As I was trying to photograph the iguanas, I had a battle with a rather large Euphorbia type cactus with very large spines and my self-inflicted wounds meant that I had to shorten my photographing session and head for the first aid kit.
From Wiki: The Rhinoceros Iguana (Cyclura cornuta) is a threatened species of lizard of the genus Cyclura that is primarily found on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, shared by the Republic of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. They vary in length from 2 to 4 1/2 feet and skin colors range from a steely gray to a dark green and even brown. Their name derives from the bony-plated pseudo-horn or outgrowth which resembles the horn of a rhinoceros on the iguana’s snout.
