There are 45 different species of Iguanidae in the Caribbean and the tropical, subtropical and desert areas of North, Central, and South America, including the marine iguanas of the Galapágos and the ...

Millions of years ago, a band of intrepid iguanas boarded a floating vessel, and reached the remote Pacific island chain.

Animals are known to have conquered large distances, riding on nature’s rafts. But one stands out as a record ocean traveler: Fiji iguanas, an endangered reptile found only on the remote islands ...

A species of wolf that died out some 12,500 years ago lives again as the world’s first successfully de-extincted animal, ...

This suggests that the iguanas rafted 5,000 miles across the Pacific from western North America to reach Fiji -- the longest known transoceanic dispersal of any land animal. Iguanas have often ...

Major weather events, such as hurricanes or floods, can dislodge vegetation and carry animals along with it. To determine when iguanas arrived in Fiji, researchers analyzed the genes of 14 living ...

As they began comparing the data to that of the Fiji iguanas, the scientists found that these animals were most closely related to iguanas in the genus Dipsosaurus. Within that genus, the most ...

Researchers believe the iguanas made the more than 5,000 mile (8,000 kilometer) journey on rafts made of vegetation, arriving in Fiji shortly after the islands formed. "You could imagine some kind ...

Millions of years ago, a group of adventurous iguanas, probably from Mexico, crossed the Pacific Ocean to Fiji on giant rafts of vegetation.

Nevertheless, sometimes clearly related animals turn up vast distances apart ... Yet somehow there are four living species in Fiji and Tonga, along with one extinct one. The obvious answer ...

"That they reached Fiji directly from North America seems crazy ... a large group that also includes animals such as chameleons, anoles, bearded dragons and horned lizards.