Wilbur Elders age 13, Ephrata, Penna
What is an iguana?
The Chinese Dragon sometimes finds himself the center of a sideshow People put down good money to see the gaudy monster, who is certainly no beauty. A row of horny scales runs from his head, along his spine and down his long, tapering tail, He may be six feet longs Dark stripes run along his greenish‑brown body. The dragon‑head is bright green with a white, waxy wart on either cheek. Under the chin hangs a loose bag of reptile skin adorned with a necklace of more horny scales.
This fascinating fellow is neither Chinese nor a dragon. He is a tropical iguana, native to the New World and a member of the lizard, or Sauria family of animals. That proud family name rated him as a distant relative of the dinosaurs who once ruled the world for 150 million years. Iguanas and dinosaurs are thought to have had a common ancestor in the dim, remote past.
For all his fearsome appearance, the iguana is a gentle, harmless fellow. As a child, he may eat a few insects. As,a grownup, he dines only on flowers, buds, leaves and fruit.. An iguana who lives on the islands off South America is very fond of cactus blossoms, A11 the. iguana cousins love, the water. One is a sea‑going lizard and swims for seaweeds on the ocean floor.
As a family, the lizards make themselves comfortable in all sorts of places. Some like the hots dry desert, others love the water, some burrow in the ground, some climb trees and a few are fitted with skin flaps that take them gliding through the air,
Our iguana is a tree climbing lizard. His ten fingers and ten toes are fitted with strong nails which he uses to pull himself up trees and long the branches. The big tropical iguana loves to roost in the high trees. Being a lizard, his legs grow from the sides of his body. He loves to bask flat on his stomach, legs spread wide at his sides. For the iguana, night is the time to to sleep, His days are spent climbing, feeding, basking and swimming ‑ a very pleasant life indeed.
The iguana is never far from the water, He prefers to doze on branches which overhang a rivers When danger threatens, he drops with a plop into the water and quietly swims away. For the gentle monster would rather run away than fight, He is quick and agile even on the land. When chased he runs without stopping until he reaches the water.
The big iguana of the tropics has many smaller relatives further north, A slender, speckled iguana lives in the hot deserts of Arizona. This cold‑blooded fellow has been known to bask himself to a body temperature of 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The Chinese Dragon is the biggest of the iguana family ‑ but not the ugliest. That honor goes to the handsome‑ugly horned toad, who is also an iguana,