Where have all the 'guanas gone? Long time passing.....

Solar Encounternet tag.

Once upon a time, a calibration study commenced. A small group of interacting Ctenosaura similis were chosen to sport solar tags that received and transmitted signals when animals encountered each other.

Thin Yellow-Brown-White after laying her eggs.

The scientists hoped they would wear the tags for about 6 weeks, after which they would be removed. In the beginning, all was well. But slowly, females in the study disappeared. Their radio signal strength indicators weakened and simply seemed to stop working.

Troubleshooting was impossible with no signal. Suddenly, female iguanas with no beads and no solar tags began nesting everywhere -- along the old airstrip, along the slope of the football field, in a dirt mound, in open areas of tilled soil.

Soon, a missing tagged iguana re-appeared, thinner, but behaving normally. Then the second missing iguana came home, also skinny. Between these two events, two other females left the study. By now it was obvious to the scientists that iguanas were laying eggs a bit earlier than reported in the literature.

Study males decamped from their breeding territory and seemed uninterested in pursuing copulations. Younger and smaller iguanas appeared, in crevices and on walls, potentially joining their larger adult counterparts. The social system was in flux.

Lighter brown soil of iguana nesting area.

C. similis head appearing out of nesting burrow.

Green iguanas, Spiny-Tailed Iguanas -- everyone was laying eggs, moving, closing down this chapter and readying for the new one.