Actually in the post above I mention nesting females. While I've heard stories from others that I BELIEVE I've never personally had a male Cyclura during breeding season be aggresive towards people although Green Iguanas are a different story. I have a large tame wild Iguana living here about 6' long that we feed. Yesterday as my albino and het females are giving off pheromones he was displaying on top of the enclosure their in. Patty walked up to feed him and he LAUNCHED HIMSELF at her face with open mouth in full attack mode. Fortunately she understands iguanid behaviour and knew it was going to happen a split second before it did. She knocked him to the side but still got minor scratches and teeth scrapes. Once on the ground he attempted to continue the attack and I used a broom to discourage that behaviour. We still LOVE Spike but I believe we'll stop hand feeding him for a while..LOL...Patty is quite fond of her nose and would like to keep it!!!!!Certainly if you grab one that doesn't want to be grabbed you better be ready for a fight and it could end in SERIOUS INJURY to the grabber. I did mean not viscious as NOT seeking you out to hurt you. Although after the Iguana incident yesterday I would hate to tangle with one of my 30 lbs males in a 12' x 15' enclosure...thanks...Handsome Andros Iguana. In the 1970's I did a lot of talks in the Bahama's particulary the Exuma group at the request of the Bahama's National Trust about why eating "guanas' is not a good thing to do. Lynn Holowesko was the President during that time. Professor Ober here in Miami had given me a subadult Andros Cyclura and I took her over to make the lectures more exciting. Since I only had the one and they at that time had 2 males at Hope Gardens I gave her to the Trust when my work was done. We had posters made up etc and put them in many schools on all Islands where Cyclura were native at. I like to think that just maybe that early effort helped in some small way because at least now very few Bahamians still hunt and eat "guana's"...thanks
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Tom Crutchfield

www.tomcrutchfield.com

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