Gau iguana

Appearance

It can be distinguished from other South Pacific iguanas by the male's distinctive color pattern and solid green throat. Climate change may also play a threat by increasing cyclone intensity. While most native wildlife in Fiji is adapted to cyclones, they can create temporary gaps in the forests that can be taken over by invasive plant and insect species such as Mikania micrantha and yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes), from that they can expand their range.

It is also the smallest of all South Pacific iguanas, being about 13% smaller than the third smallest species and 40% smaller than the largest extant species.

Range and habitat

The Gau iguana is a iguana endemic to Gau Island in the Fijian archipelago. It mostly lives in the well-preserved upland forests of the island, with smaller populations in the degraded coastal forests. The species was first recorded on Gau Island by the Scottish naturalist John MacGillivray in 1854, during his travels on HMS Herald.

It is considered endangered on the IUCN Red List due to the presence of invasive mammalian predators on its island, such as black rats (Rattus rattus), Polynesian rats (Rattus exulans), feral cats (Felis catus), and free-ranging goats (Capra hircus).

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

In crisis

Gau iguana is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Gau iguana, Wikidata item Q33060870. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.