Ctenosaura melanosterna

The lizard or snake

Ctenosaura melanosterna is a lizard or snake in the family Iguanidae.

Range and habitat

The black-chested spiny-tailed iguana is endemic to Honduras. It is only found in the Aguán Valley in northern Honduras, and on the Cayos Cochinos archipelago off the Caribbean coast, mainly on the islands Cayo Mayor and Cayo Pequeño. The natural the black-chested spiny-tailed iguana usually lives in the scrubland and the dry forest.

According to the IUCN, there is no actionary recovery plan, but there are efforts to provide a research and breeding station in the mainland on Honduras.

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

Diet

The iguanas are able to prey on smaller animals living in its habitat, such as arthropods, lizards, and fledglings.

In crisis

It is considered endangered. There are a few reasons as to why the black-chested spiny-tailed iguana is endangered, but the most significant reason is human activity. Threats from humans include from hunting, trading, and habitat destruction and fragmentation.

The iguanas and their eggs are poached for human consumption as well.

Ctenosaura melanosterna 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 Ctenosaura melanosterna, Wikidata item Q246210. 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.