One of my favorite sightings when I am in the Keys are iguanas. These colorful invaders from Central and South America are highly invasive and typically litter and chomp on the landscape. But this past Christmas, the Keys had record low temperatures, which killed large numbers of these reptiles. So in my daily bicycle rides, there are few to be found.
In years past, I would bike on the car-less trails, eyes peeled for this cold-blooded creature. At a certain time of day—between 3 and 4 pm—there is a section of the bike trail where the iguanas of Islamorada used to gather to take in the rays. Dozens of these spiny tropical denizens would line themselves up perpendicular to the sun on the blacktop trail. Looking out like a squat scaly version of Easter Island statues, they would peer out, silent and motionless toward the water. . . .until you approached them.
But now I am lucky to find a single lizard on the path. Tiny babies, that must be more immune to the cold, scamper about, but the larger, more threatening adults are far and few in between.
Perhaps next year their numbers will increase.
