Discover8 O'Clock BuzzMexican Island Iguanas Not So Invasive After All
Mexican Island Iguanas Not So Invasive After All

Mexican Island Iguanas Not So Invasive After All

Update: 2025-11-17
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Clarion Island, part of the Revillagigedo Archipelago, lies 430 miles west of the Mexico mainland’s Pacific Coast.  In the 1970s, the Mexican military brought a variety of non-native animals to the remote island, disrupting the native ecology.  In recent years, the Mexican government has sought to reverse that damage by removing destructive invasive species, including sheep, rabbits, pigs and iguana lizards.  “Hold the phone,” says Daniel Mulcahy, an organismal biologist and Head of Tissue and DNA Collections at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany.  Mulcahy headed up a study that demonstrates that those supposedly-invasive iguanas actually arrived on Clarion Island some 425,000 years ago.  Daniel Mulcahy joined the Monday Buzz on November 17, 2025.


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The post Mexican Island Iguanas Not So Invasive After All appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

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Mexican Island Iguanas Not So Invasive After All

Mexican Island Iguanas Not So Invasive After All

Brian Standing, Haywood Simmons & Michelle Naff, Jan Miyasaki, Tony Castaneda, & Jonathan Zarov