Galapagos Islands reptiles - land iguanas

Land Iguanas (Conolphus pallidus or subscristatus) are vegetarian. These iguanas feed most of the time with yellow flora and fruits of the islands such as prickly cactus pear and exist in two major forms, namely; Conolphus subcristatus which has yellow-orange coloration on Santa Cruz, Plaza, Isabela and Fernandina islands and secondly conolphus pallidus, which is decorated with brown and whitish coloration but is found only on Santa Fé.

Darwin was not much impressed with the land iguana:

"...they are ugly animals, of a yellowish orange beneath, and of a brownish-red colour above: from their low facial angle they have a singularly stupid appearance."

C. subcristatus once once had a much broader distribution and higher population numbers than it does today. In 1835 Darwin was impressed with their numbers, remarking that:

"...when we were left at James [Santiago], we could not for some time find a spot free from their burrows on which to pitch our single tent."

Today, there is not a single land iguana to be seen on Santiago. They have become extinct at the hands of man, or man's introduced animals. C. subcristatus can be found on Santa Cruz, Isabela, Fernandina and, most dramatically, on Plaza.

The land iguana has kinship in the American continent, with some structural and genetical differences. The most visible is color. While the Galapagos Land Iguana is yellowish brown to red, its continental relative is dark green to yellow.