Endangered
Cyclura ricordii
Cyclura ricordii
Cyclura ricordii is a lizard or snake in the family Iguanidae, recorded as Endangered and tied to Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Appearance
Cyclura ricordii is a rock iguana with a maximum snout-to-vent length in males of 460 mm (18 in), in females to 430 mm (17 in), The tail is 540 mm (21 in) long at maximum. The average snout-to-vent length at birth is 96 mm (3.8 in) with a 147 mm (5.8 in) tail. Their body color is a grayish green flat color marked by five to six bold pale gray chevrons alternating with dark gray to black chevrons.
Range and habitat
Until 2008, Cyclura ricordii was thought to be restricted to two populations in the southern Dominican Republic: one population in the arid Hoya de Enriquillo surrounding the hypersaline Lake Enriquillo and its lake island Isla Cabritos, and the other in the most xeric portion of the coastal lowlands of Pedernales Province. It is sympatric throughout its range with C. Cornuta, the rhinoceros iguana. All other Caribbean islands with rock iguanas are home to a single species.
It is endemic to the island of Hispaniola (in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
It is a diurnal animal, sleeping in "retreats" during the nights. Nest sites are built in clay or sand, in pockets of earth exposed to the sun.
In crisis
The natural habitats of its three subpopulations are hot, dry, wooded savanna on limestone with access to soil and sandy flats in southern Hispaniola. It is threatened by predation by introduced predators and habitat loss, due to overgrazing and charcoal manufacture. In 1970, the estimated wild population was 5,000 lizards.
In 1996, the estimated wild population was 2,000-4,000 animals. In 2018 the IUCN assessed wild population as 3,000-4,000 animals.
Cyclura ricordii 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 Cyclura ricordii, Wikidata item Q1586682. 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.
