Galapagos Marine Iguanas in Zoos

I put some videos I had taken of Galapagos Marine Iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) on YouTube in 2012. I then had a number of requests from the sort of thick-as-two-short-planks individuals who inhabit that world asking me to tell them where they could buy one.

Export of Galapagos fauna is prohibited by Ecuador and I thought there were none in captivity. Therefore, I was surprised recently to see a Marine Iguana in a video taken by a group of German zoo enthusiasts who were visiting a zoo in Japan in 2016. There have also been reports of some being kept in East Africa.

It would appear that smuggling of Land and Marine Iguanas, if not rife, has been going on. It would be very easy given a small vessel to pick up and ship out Land and Marine Iguanas from many of the islands, just as expedition vessels did in the early decades of the 20th century.

Marine Iguana on Isabella

Marine Iguanas were being traded in the 1960s. A dealer in Florida had some, and small numbers appeared in zoos including Belle Vue in Manchester. Few survived for more than a few weeks, a repeat of attempts to keep them in the 1930s.

However, Brookfield Zoo in Chicago managed to keep four Marine Iguanas for several years, the last dying after being there for over six*. They had been obtained from a dealer in Florida. Re-reading the article by Ray Pawley in the 1966 edition of International Zoo Yearbook on these iguanas I am surprised by this relative success since the conditions in captivity seem very different from those in the wild. They had a small pool with fresh, not sea, water. The humidity was high. However, the key requirements—heat lamps for basking, ultraviolet lamps for vitamin D synthesis—were there. Initially, the iguanas refused all food (as in most zoos up to that time) but Pawley had the idea of putting a Green Iguana into the cage. It settled in and fed immediately, as then did three of the Marine Iguanas on the third day!

Marine iguanas scrape marine algae and any adherent plant and animal life from rocks. Seaweed had been tried in unsuccessful attempts to keep them in captivity. Pawley made up a mixture of chopped vegetables, fruit, meat plus vitamins and minerals. He added some reconstituted kelp. Sea water was sprinkled over this mixture and onto rocks in the cage. This is what the iguanas ate  along with with nibbles at plants growing in the cage and some green algae which grew on the rocks. Those who know how to keep Green Iguanas will realise that this mixture, minus the kelp and salt water, would suit just about any mainly herbivorous iguana.

Illustration from Pawley's article in International Zoo Yearbook

The regime was obviously successful since the animals grew and Pawley later reported a great deal of aggression in what must have been the males.

In the same edition of International Zoo Yearbook, Frankfurt Zoo in Germany is listed as also having four Marine Iguanas. I have no information of how they were kept or what became of them.

*I have found wildly differing reports of longevity in the wild; from 5-12 years up to 60.

Pawley R. 1966. Observations on the care and nutrition of a captive group of Marine Iguanas Amblyrhynchus cristatus. International Zoo Yearbook 6, 107-115.

The full list of Pawley’s papers on these animals in in:

Murphy JB. 2015. Studies on Lizards and Tuataras in Zoos and Aquariums. Part I—Introduction, History, Families Iguanidae, Agamidae, Chamaeleonidae, and Infraorder Gekkota. Herpetological Reviews 46, 464-482.