






































Iguana 11.4


198 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2004 HARLOW

Adult Fijian Crested Iguana (Brachylophus vitiensis) from Yadua Taba Island, Fiji. Photograph by Joe Burgess.



Introduction

Of the eight living genera of lizards in the family Iguanidae,
only Brachylophus occurs in the South Pacific. The Pacific

Banded Iguana (Brachylophus fasciatus Brongniart 1800) and the
Fijian Crested Iguana (Brachylophus vitiensis Gibbons 1981) have
long been seen as biogeographical oddities, existing so far away
from the seven iguanid genera of the Western Hemisphere. The
family Iguanidae is regarded as a monophyletic group (all have
descended from a common ancestor) and for many years were
assumed to have evolved in the New World (Estes and Price
1973, Frost and Etheridge 1989). Phylogenetic work based on
morphology (Etheridge and de Queiroz 1988) and a combina-
tion of morphological and molecular characters (Sites et al.
1996) both suggest that Brachylophus is a sister taxon to all other
living iguanids.

How Brachylophus arrived in the South Pacific has been the
subject of hot debate for decades. All other terrestrial vertebrates
in the South Pacific are clearly derived from Indo-Malay and
Gondwanan ancestors that arrived via over-water dispersal along
the island chains of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands
(Gibbons 1985a). Cogger (1974) and Gibbons (1981, 1985a)
both suggested that long-distance rafting from the New World
across the Pacific by ancestral Brachylophus was the most proba-
ble mechanism of colonization. They pointed out a series of bio-
logical and geographical traits that preadapted Brachylophus for
this journey, including nasal salt glands for the excretion of
excess salt, an extremely long egg incubation period, and the for-

tuitous direction of the South Equatorial Current. No one sug-
gests that Brachylophus traveled the 8000 km from the Americas
to the South Pacific in a single trip. More likely, the ancestors of
Brachylophus island-hopped by occasional rafting events and col-
onized a series of islands along the way, many or all of which are
submerged today or have been submerged at some time since
the initial colonization of Brachylophus.

More recent paleontological findings now question the
romantic vision of the half-starved, gravid iguana being washed
ashore on a South Pacific beach, surviving months at sea cling-
ing to a water-logged tree. The oldest known fossil iguanids (and
the closely related agamids) are more than 63 million years old
and have been found in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia,
China (Gao and Hou 1995). These predate Estes and Price’s
(1973) South American iguanid fossils by some 11–13 million
years. Thus, the current dichotomous world distribution of the
Iguanidae may be due to a New World invasion (and subse-
quent adaptive radiation) by the ancestral Mongolian iguanids,
while the Pacific iguanas may represent the sole surviving
descendants of a true stay-at-home Asian lineage. Nevertheless,
ancestors of Brachylophus still had to cross wide ocean barriers to
arrive at their current locations in the South Pacific.

Extant Pacific iguanas are both small when compared to
most other iguanas and strongly arboreal. The Banded Iguana
has a maximum snout-vent length (SVL) of 193 mm and a
maximum weight of 207 g, whereas the Crested Iguana grows
to 223 mm SVL and weighs as much as 404 g (Gibbons and

Lost in the South Pacific: The Fijian
Iguanas (Genus Brachylophus)

Peter S. Harlow

Herpetofauna Division, Taronga Zoo, P.O. Box 20, Mosman, NSW 2088, Australia (pharlow@zoo.nsw.gov.au)

Photographs by the author except where indicated.

Abstract.—Two species of iguanas occur in the South Pacific: the widely distributed Banded Iguana and the larger
Crested Iguana, which is more restricted in its distribution. Abundance data are available only for the Crested
Iguana Sanctuary island of Yadua Taba in Fiji, and suggest that in optimal forest habitat densities may approach
200 iguanas per hectare. No other island in the Pacific is known to possess such a dense population of Brachylophus
and, on most islands where iguanas occur, sightings are rare or extremely uncommon. As the Pacific iguanas are
not hunted, eaten, or traded, their rarity is most likely due to the combination of habitat loss and degradation
from forest clearing, burning, and goat grazing, and the introduction of exotic predators such as cats, mongooses,
and perhaps rodents.

Key Words: Crested Iguana, Banded Iguana, Brachylophus, Island Conservation, Habitat Loss, Fiji Islands

“Though the beautiful Banded Iguana was not uncommon as recently as 1915, it must now be considered rare,
if not extinct, on many of the islands.”

Arthur Loveridge
Reptiles of the Pacific World, 1945

IGUANA  •  VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2004 199FIJIAN IGUANAS

�



Watkins 1982). The two species do not co-occur on any island.
Larger, probably more terrestrial species did occur in the recent
past, but were eaten and exterminated by early human inhabi-
tants in both Fiji (Lapitiguana impensa; Pregill and Worthy
2003) and Tonga (Brachylophus gibbonsi; Pregill and Steadman
2004).

The two extant species of Brachylophus are morphologically
distinct. Based on allozyme genotypes, they show little genetic
distance compared to other squamate species, but not when
compared to other iguanians (Colgan and Da Costa 1997). Zug
(1991) suggested that these two species might be the result of a
Pleistocene speciation event in Fiji, possibly resulting from the
ancestors of the Crested Iguana being isolated on the high, dry
western islands of the Yasawas during an interglacial rise in sea
levels. When sea levels later fell, the divergence was retained and
reinforced, owing to the Crested Iguana’s adaptation to drier
island environments.

The Fiji Islands
About 360 islands with areas greater than 0.5 km2 occur in Fiji,
of which about a hundred are permanently inhabited. The two
largest islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, encompass 88% of
the total land area of Fiji, and over 90% of the total Fijian pop-
ulation lives on these islands. The climate is tropical, with
cyclonic storms and heavy rain occurring in the wet season
(December–March) and the southeast trade winds influencing
the dry season (May–October). High islands on the windward
side of the Fiji island group invariably receive more rain than
those on the leeward, western side. As in many countries in the

Pacific, most of the land in Fiji today is communally owned by
clans of indigenous people.

The large, high islands of Fiji reach over 1000 m above sea
level, were emergent during the late Oligocene to middle
Miocene and have been continuously above sea level for at least
the last 16 million years (Chase 1971, Rodda 1994). Fiji has
never been connected to a continental land mass. In the absence
of any terrestrial mammals, several large flightless birds, giant
amphibians, and an endemic crocodilian evolved. With the
arrival of humans and commensal rodents about 3,500 years
ago, many of these large endemic vertebrates disappeared
(Worthy et al. 1999, Molnar et al. 2002).

The Pacific Banded Iguana
The Pacific Banded Iguana (Brachylophus fasciatus) is widely dis-
tributed in Fiji, occurs on four islands in Tonga (Gibbons and
Watkins 1982), and a recently introduced population exists on
the island of Efate in Vanuatu (Bauer 1988). The Tongan pop-
ulation appears to have been a late prehistoric human introduc-
tion from Fiji (<500 years ago), based on its total absence in the
fossil record, where only the larger, extinct Brachylophus gibbonsi
is found (Pregill and Steadman 2004). The Banded Iguana is
listed by the World Conservation Union as endangered (IUCN
2003). Cahill (1970) reported that Banded Iguanas occurred on
ten islands in Fiji, whereas Gibbons’s 1981 distribution map sug-
gests its presence on 24 Fijian islands, which increased to 31
islands on his most recent map (Gibbons 1985b). Many of these
distribution records were based on verbal reports from students
at the University of the South Pacific in Suva where Gibbons lec-
tured, as well as from villagers and previous inhabitants from
many of these islands. Gibbons suspected that many of these
reports were based on old records or village folklore, and that the
Banded Iguana might no longer exist on some of these islands
(personal communication, 1985). Zug (1991) reported records
for the Banded Iguana from 34 Fijian islands.

Banded Iguanas are slender and often brilliant emerald
green in color. Adult males have two broad, pale transverse
bands across the body and several more on the tail, whereas in
females these bands are usually entirely missing or only barely
visible. Today, the Banded Iguana appears restricted to islands
with coastal and lowland forests, but historical evidence suggests

200 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2004 HARLOW

A Crested Iguana on Yadua Taba Island.

A gravid female Banded Iguana from the large inhabited island of
Kadavu, where occasional sightings still occur.



IGUANA  •  VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2004 201FIJIAN IGUANAS

that they once were also found throughout the highland rain-
forests on Fiji’s largest islands (Gibbons 1984a, Williams 1858).
The biological information available for this species is very scant,
and is mostly inferred from captive studies. These lizards
undoubtedly are mostly herbivorous, eating a selection of young
leaves, flowers, and fruits from a wide range of plant species. In
captivity, they also will eat insects, and some authorities have
suggested that this species may be more insectivorous than the
larger Crested Iguana (Gibbons and Watkins 1982).

Captive studies in Fiji suggest that Banded Iguanas lay eggs
in the mid-wet season, from January to March (Gibbons and
Watkins 1982). However, a wild-caught female that I examined
on the island of Kadavu in mid-September 1989 was heavily
gravid with shelled eggs. More likely, multiple clutches are pro-
duced in years of abundant food (as in captivity), and egg lay-
ing may occur at any time during the warmer months of
October to March. In captivity, two to eight eggs have been
recorded in a clutch. The incubation period is between 125 and
184 days, depending on temperature (Cogger 1974, Arnett
1979).

Only one population of Banded Iguanas has been surveyed
to date. Two small, uninhabited limestone islands in the Lau
group of Eastern Fiji, close to the large island of Lakeba, support
a total population of 6000–8000 iguanas (Harlow 2003). The
survival of this population may be because the remote and
mostly inaccessible Aiwa Islands have remained free of intro-
duced predators, invasive plants, and forest fires.

The Fijian Crested Iguana
The Fijian Crested Iguana (Brachylophus vitiensis) was first
brought to the attention of the herpetological world in 1981,
when John Gibbons recognized this species as being very differ-
ent from the smaller Pacific Banded Iguana (Gibbons 1981). Its
presence had long been known to the local Fijians, and the
Saumuri (Crested Iguana) is well represented in legends, stories,
and village folklore on the islands where it occurs (A. Biciloa,
personal communication). Despite its relatively recent scientific
discovery, today we know far more about the abundance, distri-
bution, and biology of the Crested Iguana than we do about the
Banded Iguana.

Crested Iguanas are more robust than Banded Iguanas and
are easily distinguished by a high crest of enlarged middorsal
scales from the nape to the base of the tail. Ground color in both
males and females is green, with black-edged, narrow white
transverse bands along the body and tail. Like the Banded
Iguana, the Crested Iguana can change its background color
from various shades of green to almost black in a matter of min-
utes. In captivity, the Crested Iguana can produce multiple
clutches in a single season (Boylan 1989). Clutch size varies from
two to seven eggs, with an average of four (Bach 1998). On the
Crested Iguana Sanctuary island of Yadua Taba (pronounced
Yandua Tamba in Fijian), lizards apparently lay only a single
clutch each year in the mid-wet season (February to March),
with the first hatchlings appearing at the end of October (per-
sonal observation). This suggests an incubation period of seven
to eight months in the field, exceptionally long for any lizard. In
captivity, incubation periods have ranged from 4 1/2 months
(Boylan 1989) to 9 1/2 months (Bach 1998). 

At the time of its discovery by Gibbons on the island of
Yadua Taba in January 1979, most biologists doubted that the
species existed anywhere else. Yadua Taba is a remote, uninhab-
ited, 70-hectare island lying 120 m off the larger inhabited
island of Yadua (1360 ha). Yadua Taba is rocky, mostly forested,
about 1.2 km long, 500 m wide at its widest point, and reaches
over 100 m in elevation.

A party searching for an idyllic island on which to film the
original 1949 Blue Lagoon movie (staring Jean Simmons) briefly
visited Yadua Taba in 1947. Although the island was not chosen
for the film, Fijian resident Mr. A. C. Read collected an iguana
on Yadua Taba. That individual appeared to be different than
the Banded Iguana with which he was familiar, and he presented
it to the Fiji Museum in Suva (Boylan, personal communica-
tion). The specimen was presumably preserved and added to the
museum’s reptile collection, but no locality data were recorded.
This was 32 years before John Gibbons visited Yadua Taba and
recognized the Crested Iguana as a distinct species.

In her 1970 Fiji Museum booklet on the Banded Iguana
(the only Fijian species known at that time), Cynthia Cahill

A Monuriki Crested Iguana with a temporary marking to avoid dou-
ble-counting during a population census.

Yadua Taba Island photographed from Yadua island in 1979. The
patches of grassland seen in this photo are now mostly covered by
regenerating forest. Photograph by John Gibbons.



referred to this specimen: “An old preserved specimen in the Fiji
Museum certainly appears to be much more solidly built with a
much larger crest than any of the present day specimens col-
lected.” The 1947 Crested Iguana is undoubtedly the paratype
in the description of the species by Gibbons (1981), and referred
to as “Fiji Museum (no number), one adult male, but no col-
lection data.”

Although only known from the island of Yadua Taba at the
time, in August 1979, a Crested Iguana made a brief cameo
appearance in the remake of the movie Blue Lagoon (starring
Brooke Shields), which was filmed on the tourist resort island of
Nanuya Levu in the Yasawa group, an arc of islands northwest
of the largest Fijian island, Viti Levu, and about 90 km west of
Yadua Taba. On becoming aware of this, John Gibbons traveled
to the Yasawas and also visited the more southerly Mamanuca
group of islands in search of Crested Iguanas — and confirmed
that the species did occur on several islands within these groups
(Gibbons 1984a, 1984b, 1985a, 1985b). He reported that the
Crested Iguana was found on at least eight islands, but most of
these records seemingly were based on verbal reports from vil-
lagers. He saw iguanas only on two islands: Matacawa Levu in
the Yasawas and Monuriki in the Mamanucas. Tragically, John
Gibbons, his wife Lily, and their two children drowned in a
boating accident in Fiji in November 1986, and his notebooks
and unpublished records were later destroyed.

In September 2000, I set out with a team of volunteers,
staff, and students from the University of the South Pacific in
Suva to verify these earlier distribution records of Gibbons and
to investigate other potential islands where Crested Iguanas may
still occur in the Yasawa and Mamanuca island groups. We sur-
veyed eleven uninhabited and six inhabited islands for Crested
Iguanas. All of these islands have large numbers of free-ranging
domestic goats, and forest fires have occurred repeatedly on most
of them over the last few decades. Our iguana survey transects
were purposely placed through areas within beach forest rem-
nants that had the maximum number and diversity of tree
species known to be used by iguanas for food. Night searches for
sleeping iguanas along a total of 11.2 km of beach forest tran-
sects were biased toward maximizing our chances of locating
iguanas and were not designed to estimate average abundance.
Groups of team members intensively searched the forest along
each transect and collectively searched for over 123 hours at an
average search rate of six meters per minute.

Our results suggest that Crested Iguanas are extremely rare
or extinct on all of these islands. We found iguanas on only four
of the 17 islands surveyed: three small, uninhabited islands
(Devuilau, 0.23 km2; Monu. 0.73 km2; and Monuriki, 0.40
km2) and a single large inhabited island (Waya, 22.0 km2). We
saw a total of six live iguanas on these four islands, plus one juve-
nile iguana that had been killed and partly eaten on Devuilau
Island. Although the introduced mongoose does not occur on
any island in the Yasawas and Mamanucas, feral cats are found
on all inhabited islands, were seen on one uninhabited island,
and probably exist on many of the other uninhabited islands we
surveyed.

On many of the islands that we surveyed, beach forest rem-
nants are restricted to steep valleys and along rocky ephemeral
watercourses. The major part of these islands is covered by open

grasslands or impenetrable thickets of Vai Vai (Leucaena leuco-
cephala), a small exotic tree introduced for goat food, but not
eaten by iguanas. We selected ten islands for forest vegetation
surveys, and found great inter-island differences in the density
and diversity of Crested Iguana food trees. All of the islands that
we surveyed had goats, and islands with evidence of regular for-
est fires were typically dominated by only three or four non-edi-
ble (to goats and iguanas) tree species. Other islands, which
showed little or no evidence of forest fires, show greater tree
species diversity, and several support abundant iguana food trees
(e.g., Tavewa and Devuilau). On these islands, Crested Iguanas
either were not recorded or were found in very low numbers,
even though food does not appear to be a limiting factor. We
suspect feral cats to be the major reason for the small number of
iguanas seen on these islands.

The September 2000 iguana surveys found that the Crested
Iguana Sanctuary of Yadua Taba held larger Crested Iguana pop-
ulation densities than any other surveyed island. Even consider-
ing that our transects were placed in optimal habitats and were
thus biased toward finding iguanas, none of the four islands
where we recorded iguanas had population densities greater than
about two iguanas per hectare in the best available forest habi-
tat (i.e., along watercourses). Average population densities over
the entire forest remnant were much lower. 

202 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2004 HARLOW

Pita Biciloa with a Crested Iguana captured on Monuriki island.



IGUANA  •  VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2004 203FIJIAN IGUANAS

Although Fijian villagers in the Yasawa and Mamanuca
islands told us that Crested Iguanas are still occasionally encoun-
tered on several inhabited islands where large beach forest rem-
nants remain (Nacula, Matacawa Levu, and Naviti), these pop-
ulations are unlikely to survive in the long term because of the
presence of feral cats and continuing forest habitat degradation.
Most of the smaller inhabited islands in these groups have little
or no remaining beach forests, and the inhabitants have no liv-
ing memory of Crested Iguanas being present (e.g., Yanuca,
Tavua, and Tokoriki).

The importance of the Crested Iguana Sanctuary island of
Yadua Taba for the long-term conservation of the Fijian Crested
Iguana is obvious, and the resources of the International
Conservation Fund for the Fijian Crested Iguana are increasingly
being directed to the upkeep of the Crested Iguana Sanctuary
(see below). In 1980, Yadua Taba was declared a wildlife sanc-
tuary, an attempt was made to remove the free-ranging domes-
tic goats (which belonged to the villagers on Yadua), and an hon-
orary ranger was appointed. Initially, Gibbons (1984a) estimated
the size of the total population of Crested Iguanas on Yadua
Taba at 100–200 adults. Mark-recapture and mark-resighting
surveys subsequently provided more accurate populations esti-
mates for Yadua Taba. Cogger and Sadlier (1986) estimated a
total population of 2,000–5,000, whereas Laurie et al. (1987)
estimated a population size of 4,000–8,300. More recently,
Harlow and Biciloa (2001) used line-transect surveys and esti-
mated a total population size of 4,800–7,900 iguanas. About 25
ha of Yadua Taba are covered by beach forest habitat, in which
Crested Iguanas occur in remarkable densities approaching
200/ha. Nighttime surveys of sleeping iguanas in this forest
recorded an average of one iguana every five meters of transect
searched (Harlow and Biciloa 2001).

The Future of Fijian Iguanas
Since European contact, Fiji has undergone massive environ-
mental degradation, which has accelerated in the last few
decades. The Indian Mongoose (Herpestes auropunctatus) was
introduced in 1883 to the two largest islands, and the disap-
pearance or extreme rarity of ground-nesting birds, large diur-
nal skinks, and Banded Iguanas was noted almost immediately
(Pernetta and Watling 1978). Cats were introduced even earlier
and are assumed to be responsible for the extinction or rarity of

these same species on mongoose-free islands (Gibbons 1984).
All inhabited islands have feral cats and, as Fijians occasionally
dump unwanted kittens onto uninhabited islands to “keep the
rats down,” probably many uninhabited islands also have cats
(personal observation).

In the 1970s and 1980s, a rapid increase in the value of
goats meant that grazing uninhabited islands became a simple
and lucrative farming technique. The typical regime of over-
stocking, often combined with regular dry season burning, has
destroyed much of the native vegetation and caused catastrophic
soil erosion on many islands. Selective grazing by goats on the
seedlings of palatable tree species has resulted in the prolifera-
tion of unpalatable native species, as well as of invasive exotic
species inedible to iguanas (Harlow and Biciloa 2001).

In Fiji, both species of Pacific iguanas can only be seen in
captivity at Kula Eco Park near Sigatoka, on the South coast of
the main island of Viti Levu. Although apparently widely dis-
tributed, even adventurous visitors to Fiji are unlikely to see an
iguana of either species in the wild today, except on the sanctu-
ary island of Yadua Taba. More likely, the visitor to an outer
island who asks about iguanas will be told that one was seen a
few months ago, or may be taken to a house where a pet iguana
is tethered by string to a bush, or is living (temporarily) in a vil-
lage Hibiscus or Tahitian Chestnut (Inocarpus fagifer) tree.
Iguanas are rarely seen, often killed on sight, or occasionally cap-
tured and taken home as pets. On most inhabited islands where
iguanas are found, encounters are such unusual occurrences that
people will long remember the incident and its location,
although not necessarily the year. Eighty-year-old men will tell
a story about an unlikely incident with a Vokai or Saumuri
(iguana), but after many bowls of kava (the popular and slightly
analgesic Pacific drink) may admit it actually happened to their
father or grandfather.

The fact that occasional sightings of iguanas still occur on
many islands is reassuring. Both species of Brachylophus are arbo-
real and superbly camouflaged. As Fijians rarely venture into the
forest at night (by far the best time to find iguanas), the rarity of
encounters is not surprising. Arthur Loveridge’s (1945; see intro-
duction) suggestion that Banded Iguanas were rare and heading
toward extinction in 1945 has seemingly not yet occurred.
Whether the occasional sightings of Brachylophus today are
indicative of low but stable population densities or represent
populations that are slowly declining towards extinction is an
unanswered question. If the latter is true, then the long-term
conservation of Fijian iguanas will ultimately depend on having
several well-protected populations of each species on small,
uninhabited islands free of introduced predators and goats.

International Conservation Fund for the Fijian Crested
Iguana (ICFFCI) (www.icffci.com)

The Fijian Crested Iguana is listed by the IUCN as Critically
Endangered (IUCN 2003). Because recent surveys have con-
firmed that only one viable population of this species remains,
international support is necessary to maintain the Crested
Iguana Sanctuary island of Yadua Taba. Yadua Taba was declared
Fiji’s first wildlife reserve in 1980, but legal protection for the
island was not assured until recently, when a 33-year lease was
signed with the traditional owners.

A pair of Crested Iguanas on Yadua Taba Island sleeping in a Diospyros
phlebodes tree, a favorite food species.



ICFFCI was established in 1999 by a Memorandum of
Agreement between the government department in charge of
protection and conservation of Fiji’s natural resources, The
National Trust of the Fiji Islands, and the two recognized cen-
ters for the captive breeding of the Fijian Crested Iguana (Kula
Eco Park in Sigatoka, Fiji, and Taronga Zoo in Sydney,
Australia). The urgent need for this international conservation
fund was perceived and its creation accomplished primarily by
Carol Bach (Taronga Zoo) and Philip Felsted (Kula Eco Park).
The objectives of the fund are to: Develop through education
and public awareness programs a better understanding and
appreciation of the Fijian Crested Iguana and its habitat; assist
in the conservation of existing wild Fijian Crested Iguana pop-
ulations and their natural habitat; and create, manage, fund, and
maintain one or more new Crested Iguana sanctuaries in the
Republic of Fiji.

In the five years since its creation, ICFFCI has organized
and funded two major projects. An endangered species educa-
tion program in Fiji featured the Crested Iguana and was deliv-
ered in areas where critical habitat exists. All parties to the agree-
ment developed programs directed at school children and
successfully brought the Crested Iguana conservation message
to many people via television, radio, magazine, and newspaper
coverage within and outside Fiji. Probably the most important

result was the awareness that this program created among gov-
ernment officials in Fiji, who became instrumental in negotiat-
ing and funding the lease for Yadua Taba, despite politically dif-
ficult times. Because the proceeds of the lease for Yadua Taba do
not benefit the nearby villagers on Yadua (who are not the tra-
ditional owners), a goodwill payment was made to the village
school. A series of gifts to the village recognized the important
role it plays in supporting the sanctuary. Since 2001, the Yadua
school children have had an annual educational fieldtrip to the
Yadua Taba Crested Iguana Sanctuary with a guided tour by the
ranger. For many of these children, this was their first visit to the
sanctuary island and their first view of a Crested Iguana, despite
the fact that the village is only four kilometers away.

Conservation efforts continue to concentrate on the needs
of the Crested Iguana Sanctuary on Yadua Taba. The sanctuary
ranger, Pita Biciloa, Fiji’s only wildlife ranger, visited Sydney in
November 2000 for a two-week training program with local
National Parks and Wildlife Service staff and vegetation regen-
eration specialists. In a joint funding arrangement with the
National Trust of Fiji Islands, the fund paid for half of a new 28-
foot sanctuary patrol boat and outboard motor.

Funding for these projects came from a variety of sources.
Special recognition should go to the major sponsors, Bradley
Trevor Greive and The Taronga Foundation, John Binns,
Yamaha Motors of Australia, RandomBase Consulting, and the
Australian Society of Zoo Keepers. The sale of Crested Iguana
T-shirts, individual cash donations, and public donations of
equipment and supplies all helped significantly. The immense
time and effort contributed by volunteers and the staff of the
parties to this agreement are priceless. Much more work needs
to be done to guarantee the future of the spectacular and unique
Fijian Crested Iguana, including the establishment of additional
sanctuaries. The web page at www.icffci.com will contain fur-
ther information and updates.

Acknowledgments
I thank the people of Denimanu village on Yadua for their sup-
port, friendship, and assistance during my visits, especially Pita
Biciloa and his family. Philip Felsted and the staff at Kula Eco
Park in Sigatoka provided me with unlimited support and
encouragement during my trips to Fiji, while Carol Bach,
Elizabeth Erasito, Viane Amato, Jone Niukula, and all the staff
at The National Trust of the Fiji Islands were invaluable in their
support. The BP Conservation Programme provided funding
for the September 2000 Crested Iguana surveys of the Yasawa
and Mamanuca islands. This paper is dedicated to John Gibbons
and Ivy Watkins, in recognition of their passion for Fiji and its
wildlife, especially the Fijian iguanas.

References
Arnett, J. R. 1979. Breeding the Fiji Banded Iguana

Brachylophus fasciatus at Knoxville Zoo. International
Zoological Yearbook 19:78–79.

Bach, C. 1998. Egg data study of Fijian Crested Iguana,
Brachylophus vitiensis. Thylacinus 22:12–13.

Bauer, A. M. 1988. A geological basis for some herpetofaunal
disjunctions in the southwest Pacific, with special reference
to Vanuatu. Herpetological Journal 1:259–263.

204 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2004 HARLOW

The author on Yadua Taba with Crested Iguanas bagged for fecal col-
lection as part of a dietary study. Photograph by Pita Biciloa.



IGUANA  •  VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4  •  DECEMBER 2004 205FIJIAN IGUANAS

Boylan, T. 1989. Reproduction of the Fijian Crested Iguana,
Brachylophus vitiensis, at Taronga Zoo. International
Zoological Yearbook. 28:126–130.

Brongniart, A. 1800. Essai d’une classification naturelle des rep-
tiles. Bulletin de la Société Philomathique 2:89–91.

Cahill, C. 1970. The Banded Iguana of Fiji. Fiji Museum
Educational Series, Fiji Museum, Suva.

Chase, C. G. 1971. Tectonic history of the Fiji Plateau.
Geological Society of America Bulletin 82:3087–3110.

Cogger, H. G. 1974. Voyage of the Banded Iguana. Australian
Natural History 18:144–149.

Cogger, H. G. and R. A. Sadlier. 1986. Population size and
structure in the Fijian Crested Iguana, pp. 507–512. In: Z.
Rocek (ed.), Studies in Herpetology, Prague.

Colgan, D. J. and P. Da Costa. 1997. Genetic discrimination
between the iguanas Brachylophus vitiensis and Brachylophus
fasciatus. Journal of Herpetology 31:589–591.

Estes, R. and L. I. Price. 1973. Iguanid lizard from the Upper
Cretaceous of Brazil. Science 180:748–751.

Etheridge, R. and K. de Queiroz. 1988. A phylogeny of
Iguanidae, pp. 283–367. In: R. Estes and G. K. Pregill
(eds.), Phylogenetic Relationships of the Lizard Families.
Stanford University Press, Stanford, California.

Frost, D. R. and R. Etheridge. 1989. A phylogenetic analysis
and taxonomy of iguanian lizards (Reptilia: Squamata).
Miscellaneous Publications of the Museum of Natural History,
University of Kansas (81):1–65.

Gao, K. and L. Hou. 1995. Iguanians from the Upper
Cretaceous Djadochta Formation, Gobi Desert, China.
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 15:57–78.

Gibbons, J. R. H. 1981. The biogeography of Brachylophus
(Iguanidae), including the description of a new species, B.
vitiensis, from Fiji. Journal of Herpetology 15:255–273.

Gibbons, J. R. H. 1984a. Iguanas of the South Pacific. Oryx
18:82–91.

Gibbons, J. R. H. 1984b. Discovery of a brand-new million-
year-old iguana. Animal Kingdom 87:23–30.

Gibbons, J. R. H. 1985a. The biogeography and evolution of
Pacific island reptiles and amphibians, pp. 125–143. In: G.
Grigg, R. Shine, and H. Ehmann (eds.), Biology of
Australasian Frogs and Reptiles. Surrey Beatty and Sons,
Sydney, Australia.

Gibbons, J. R. H. 1985b. On the trail of the Crested Iguana.
Animal Kingdom 6:40–45.

Gibbons, J. R. H. and I. F. Watkins. 1982. Behavior, ecology,
and conservation of South Pacific iguanas, Brachylophus,
including a newly discovered species, pp. 419–441. In: G.
M. Burghardt and A. S. Rand (eds.), Iguanas of the World:
Their Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation. William Andrew
Publishing, Noyes, New Jersey.

Harlow, P. S. 2003. Searching for Banded Iguanas in the Lau
Islands, Eastern Fiji. Iguana (Journal of the International
Iguana Society) 10:103–107.

Harlow, P. S. and P. N. Biciloa. 2001. Abundance of the Fijian
Crested Iguana (Brachylophus vitiensis) on two islands.
Biological Conservation 98:223–231.

IUCN. 2003. Red List of Threatened Animals. World Conser-
vation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Laurie, W. A., H. Uryu, and D. Watling. 1987. A faunal sur-
vey of Yaduataba Island reserve with particular reference to
the Crested Iguana (Brachylophus vitiensis Gibbons 1981).
Domodomo 5:16–28.

Loveridge, A. 1945. Reptiles of the Pacific World. The MacMillan
Company, New York.

Molnar, R. E., T. H. Worthy, and P. M. A. Willis. 2002. An
extinct endemic crocodilian from Fiji. Journal of Vertebrate
Paleontology 22:612–628.

Pernetta, J. C. and D. Watling. 1978. The introduced and native
terrestrial vertebrates of Fiji. Pacific Science 32:223–244.

Pregill, G. K. and D. W. Steadman. 2004. South Pacific Iguanas:
Human impacts and a new species. Journal of Herpetology
38:15–21.

Pregill, G. K. and T. H. Worthy. 2003. A new iguanid lizard
(Squamata, Iguanidae) from the late Quaternary of Fiji,
Southwest Pacific. Herpetologica 59:57–67.

Rodda, P. 1994. Geology of Fiji, pp. 131–151. In: A. J.
Stevenson, R. H. Herzer, and P. F. Balance (eds.), Geology
and Submarine Resources of the Tonga-Lau-Fiji Region. South
Pacific Applied Geosciences Commission (SOPAC)
Technical Bulletin, Suva, Fiji Islands.

Sites, J. W., S. K. Davis, T. Guerra, J. B. Iverson, and H. L.
Snell. 1996. Character congruence and phylogenetic signal
in molecular and morphological data sets: A case study in
the living iguanas (Squamata, Iguanidae). Molecular Biology
and Evolution 13:1087–1105.

Williams, T. 1858. In: G. S. Rowe (ed.). 1982. Fiji and the
Fijians. Vol. 1. The Islands and their Inhabitants. Fiji
Museum, Suva.

Worthy, T. H., A. J. Anderson, and R. E. Molnar. 1999.
Megafaunal expressions in a land without mammals — the
first fossil faunas from terrestrial deposits in Fiji.
Senckenbergiana Biologica 79:237–242.

Zug, G. 1991. The Lizards of Fiji: Natural History and
Systematics. Bishop Museum Bulletin in Zoology (2). Bishop
Museum Press, Honolulu.

Author Biography
Peter Harlow has worked as a researcher on the ecology and
biology of a wide range of reptiles, including crocodilians,
lizards, snakes, and turtles, for over 20 years. While the
majority of this work has been concentrated on Australian
species, other projects have included the biology of reptiles
used in the commercial skin industry in Indonesia, the ecol-
ogy of southern African snakes, and population surveys and
conservation biology of Pacific iguanas. He completed his
Ph.D. on the ecology of sex-determining mechanisms in
Australian agamid lizards, investigating why egg incubation
temperatures determine hatchling sex in some agamid
species, when other, often closely related species, use genetic
sex determination. At present, he is the manager of the
Herpetofauna Division at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney,
Australia.




