Marine Iguana

The nautical common common common iguana, scientifically known as Amblyrhynchus cristatus, is the besides lizard in the world that takes to the sea. Markedly variant in appearance, size, and physical attri exceptes, than its land-living cousin. As one of the many varieties of iguana that Darwin observe in the Galapagos Islands, the devil dog iguana demonstrates an evolutionary response to a grouchy set of environmental challenges and has offered shipboard soldier and land biologists alike the opportunity to count one of the true cross-over species.The discovery of this iguana variant was division, clearly, of the evidence that take so many scientists to at once see the logic and accuracy of what Darwin had detect. Understanding the devil dog iguanas habitat, diet, behavioral patterns, natural selection techniques, and outlook is the purpose of this examination. It is intended to gain a broad to a lower placestanding of how the naval iguana lives, breeds, and survi ves.First discovered by Charles Darwin, aboard the Beagle, fleck touring the Galapagos Islands, the devil dog iguana, or Amblyrhynchus cristatus became one of the most remarkable demotes of that journey. The marine iguana is distinguished from new(prenominal) iguanas by their short, blunt snouts and slightly laterally mingy tail that efficiently moves this lizard along the come or down the stairs the pissing, (Amblyrhynchus cristatus, Marine iguana MarineBio.org. Retrieved Monday, April 9, 2007, from http//marinebio.org/species.asp?id=165.)The marine iguana is of a similar distance to the full-grown land iguanas (r individuallying devil to cardinal feet from nose to tail) and can believe up to eight pounds. The color of the marine iguana is quite about matched to the black volcanic rocks in which it lives. While in that location argon no natural predators of the marine iguana on land, thus making the evolutionary argument for the coloring of the creature to be necessa ry for camouflage, there atomic number 18 very specific benefits primarily being that of heat absorption. In the water, however, predators abound.The marine iguana, living both on land and in the oceanic, and being a cold-blooded creature, requires an ad sightlyment time when going from hot to cold and endothermic coloring, such as the dark black dominant color on the marine iguana helps to reduce that shift in temperatures and helps to return the iguana to normal speed of functioning faster. The marine iguana, like all reptiles, does non suck the ability to thermoregulate which likewise accounts for the dark coloring as a necessary boost in the absorption of heat from the sun.This ability is dead critical to the marine iguanas pursuit of pabulum. All reptiles allow physically slow down to a near halt the colder they get. at that placefore, in order to pr howevert an absolute cessation of movement during a dive, the marine iguana must turn up its personify temperature to combat the nearly 10degree-Celsius sledding that comes from an average dive. In fact, heat is a very significant part of the marine iguanas life. They must warm themselves to dive, exclusively they also must maintain a consistent temperature or risk acquiring too hot. (Rothman, p1). The marine iguanas adaptations also include a nasal gland that excretes the excess salt taken in while in the ocean. All of these factors, and more, contribute to making the marine iguana a most fascinating creature.The habitat of the marine iguana is not reasonable limited to the Galapagos Islands but that is the completely place it is naturally found (there are many marine iguana exhibits in zoos. The Galapagos Islands are generally characterized by a variety of both high and low and scrub or cling-vegetation. Each island is bizarre in its combination of vegetation and animal life. The marine iguana does not appear on all of the Galapagos islands, but, as has been previously stated, it is only f ound there which shows that it, as a unique creature, came to be what it is as a result of living in its particular habitat. Interestingly, there are also variations in average size depending upon which island you find the marine iguana upon.Those found on Isabela and Ferdinandina are the largest and the smallest are found on the island of Genovesa. How the marine iguana found its way to the Galapagos islands (and the marine iguana is the only iguana species on the islands) is unknown. But, the prevailing theories center on the idea that the iguanas go across on a land-bridge that sank long ago, or that they were transported from the mainland of Argentina or elsewhere in South America.Regardless, because of their distance from their origins, their unique environment that other iguanas had not been exposed to, and the relative lack of traditional iguana food (which is, actually, just about anything) but on these islands, the iguanas were either too slow to puss prey, or the natural vegetation was simply not nutritious comme il faut for their needs. So, faced with this, the iguanas adapted to their environment and found that algae, one of the worlds most nutrient-rich foods, was a better and more consistent source of food than any other.There are thousands of insect varieties that other lizard species feed upon on the islands, but for the marine iguana, it is the algae growing on the rocks under the ocean surface that provides their food. Getting the algae does not require a great betray of hunting or foraging. As algae is exceptionally abundant. Because of this, the marine iguana has an average dive depth of up to 15 meters (with most only needing to be in the 1.5-5 meter range) and can remain under water for three to five minutes (with a notable few discovered dives of up to 30 min), (marinebio.org).The day of the marine iguana is spent doing predictable reptile behavior sunning to absorb heat in order to arrive at a more successful dive for food, diving for food, and, reproducing. The reproduction pass for the marine iguana begins in December and goes through March. The nesting season follows immediately after breeding, which takes place in the January to April time frame. Breeding begins when females hit three to five-years of age and when the males are within the 6 to 8 year range.As is the result with only a few reptiles, the male marine iguanas have nothing to do with the guarding of the eggs. But, the females will do so for up to a week (Rubenstein & Wikelski, Seasonal Changes in Food Quality A proximate pool cue for reproductive timing in marine iguanas, 3013). aft(prenominal) that period, they leave the eggs on their own to incubate under two to four feet of sand. Hatchlings weigh an average of 55 grams and are geared for survival from the moment they emerge from the shell.The challenges to the survival of the marine iguana are many, but they are no more so than those facing every other species of plant and animal on the islands or, indeed, anywhere else in the world. Pollution, climate change, environmental shifts (such as El Nino), and valet de chambre encroachment all play a part in determining the long-term survival of the marine iguana. Fortunately, though, for this species at least there is relatively little industrialization or human colonization of the Galapagos.This results in much lower amounts of land and ecosystem loss. But, as is the case for any creature that cant make its own food, the marine iguanas challenge is to eat enough to survive each day. As long as ocean pollution does not find a way to kill off the algae, the marine iguana will continue to thrive in the Galapagos.The marine iguana is, indeed, a unique and special animal. Referred to derogatorily as being ugly, the marine iguana is unambiguously suited (adapted) to its environment through a series of evolutionary shifts that took it extraneous from the land iguana to one that can swim under water, clear salt through a nasal gland, and gets nearly all of its food underwater. These creatures eat primarily algae found on the rocks and reefs below the ocean surface and, in order to make these dives to get that food, must raise their core temperature to as to have quick reflexes even as their body temperature is going down.Found on many of the Galapagos islands, the marine iguana even shows variations in body size from island to island. Breeding takes place in the pass months (of the Southern Hemisphere) and nesting follows shortly. The marine iguana provides a look into the deep biological past (one can see the dinosaurs in the background) for its appearance which is designed to suffice with the absorption of heat. While the marine iguana is not currently under environmental threat, but can be greatly affected by a host of events both locally and globally.ReferencesAmblyrhynchus cristatus, Marine Iguana MarineBio.org. Online. Internet. Avail. http//marinebio.org/species.asp?id=165. Info acc 8 M arch, 2007.Rothman, Robert. Marine Iguana. RIT.edu. Online. Internet. Avail http//www.rit.edu/rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/MarineIguana.html. Access 8 March, 2007.Rubenstein, Dustin R. and Wikelksi, Martin. Seasonal changes in food quality a proximate cue for reproductive timing in marine iguanas. Ecology 84.11 (Nov 2003) p3013.