Can iguanas ride rafts for 200 miles?

In a flash of spectacular luck, finding just the right lizard in the right hurricane, a researcher has provided the best evidence yet of a group of land animals traveling over water to a new home. At least 15 green iguanas appeared on the Caribbean island of Anguilla several weeks after Hurricane Luis and then Hurricane Marilyn thrashed by in September 1995, reports Ellen J. Censky, director of the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. In the Oct. 8 Nature, she and her colleagues propose that the iguanas washed ashore on debris blown in from Guadeloupe, some 200 miles away.

Censky had been studying iguanas on Anguilla for more than a decade and knew green iguanas did not occur there naturally. Islanders told her about great tangles of uprooted trees 30 to 50 feet tall that had come ashore. Analyzing recent weather, currents, and species occurrence, Censky proposes that the iguanas arrived as castaways after surviving at least 3 weeks at sea. After 2 years of monitoring, researchers could still find some of the seafarers, which supports the idea that people aren't the only species to colonize new lands by sailing.