Last week we mentioned the contrasting beauty of iguanas compared with lizards, to which they are related. But while many of them are quite pretty, there are some that look like miniature dragons and scare people who do not know they are harmless.
One, the twenty-pound sea iguana, is frightening in appearance. A good swimmer, it lives near ocean water, and its food is almost entirely limited to seaweed. Another that prefers the dry desert country of Costa Rica is just as fierce looking, carrying a spiked crest of flesh all along the top of its back and neck. It lacks the pretty coloring of so many others and has just a plain, speckled-gray, armor-like skin.
Then there is the horned iguana of Haiti, with three horn-like scales erect on its head and a row of comb-like, high bristles along its back and part of its tail. A bag of loose skin hanging below its neck, together with the other strange features, gives it a frightening appearance. Yet it would never harm you.
The best-known iguana has the awkward name of tuberculate and makes its home in South and Central America and the West Indies. This one looks like a fierce dragon, growing to five or six feet long. Greenish with black speckles over most of its body, it carries a saw-like crest over its neck and back. But it also is harmless and lives entirely on plants, buds and flowers.
Others, somewhat similar, live in trees, near rivers and lakes. Their usual diet consists of leaves, fruit and flowers, but some include insects and small birds as well. It would take many pages to describe all varieties, so we can only consider these few.
We may wonder what part these odd creatures have in God’s creation, but we know He has placed them in each region to fill out His purposes. Among other things, we can see that in eating flowers and fruit, they carry seeds to spots where they eventually develop into additional plants to replace those that die out. Then, too, in eating insects they help control the damage the insects do to plant and animal life in those areas.
Though we may not understand, we know the Creator has adapted each to live comfortably in its surroundings, and they are part of His marvelous creation in which He takes pleasure. A Bible verse tells us, “Thou, even Thou, art Lord alone; Thou hast made... the earth, and all things that are therein... and Thou preservest them all.” Nehemiah 9:66Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee. (Nehemiah 9:6).
Those who know the Lord Jesus as their Saviour can enjoy the Bible verses that tell us, “O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. O fear [reverence] the Lord, ye His saints: for there is no want to them that fear Him.” Psalms 34:8,98O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. 9O fear the Lord, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him. (Psalm 34:8‑9). Are you one of those who trusts in Him?
ML-06/29/1986