A REVIEW OF FEEDING AND LIGHTING REQUIREMENTS FOR CAPTIVE HERBIVOROUSLIZARDS - CYCLURA AND IGUANA

The diet of wild herbivorous iguanas consists primarily of plant mater ial, of which foliage is the principal component. Herbivorous iguanas use hindgut fermentation to digest this material, which is broken down by the action of microbial organisms in the colon. Microbial fermenta tion is temperature dependent and operates efficiently when lizards at tain high body temperatures (35-37 degrees C), To be maintained succes sfully in captivity herbivorous lizards rt quire highly specialised di ets, lighting and temperature regimes. Jersey Wildlife Presentation Tr ust (JWPT) has maintained herbivorous iguanas since 1977, and currentl y keeps two species, the rhinoceros iguana Cyclura cornuta cornuta and Lesser Antilles iguana Iguana delicatissima. Although apparently heal thy, neither species has bred well (JWPT acquired both I. delicatissim a when they were juveniles). Because of this, along with the possibili ty of JWPT maintaining the rarer Jamaican iguana C. collei, a review o f maintenance regimes, with particular emphasis on nutrition and light ing, was undertaken. This included a literature review of the dietary and lighting requirements for herbivorous iguanas, encompassing studie s both from the wild and captivity, as well as a survey of the current capture management regimes used by the major institutions that hold t hese genera.