Blue Diamond Iguana

There is one (or maybe more) area within the iguana range that produce predominantly blue iguanas. These iguanas, when happy, exhibit a beautiful turquoise blue color. When they are cold or stressed, they are green. The irises of their eyes tend to be a deep reddish-brown, and they generally have black skin surrounding the scales on their bodies, heads, tails and dewlaps. Some may have lots of black in their eyelids.

These iguanas, which may come from Peru, should not be confused with the many baby iguanas from all over the range who show lots of blue when they are hatchlings. For a year so so, there was a flood of "blue iguanas" in the pet trade, with dealers snapping them and selling them for 3-4 x the price of the "regular" green iguanas. The people who paid more for these "special" iguanas found to their dismay that by the time their "blue" iguana reached a year of age, they were just as green as any other iguana. The true "blue" iguanas look exactly like the green iguanas when the are babies, so picking a blue hatchling is no guarantee that it will retain any blue as it matures.

Keep in mind that it takes blue and yellow to make the color green. In many reptile species, the yellow pigment is slow to develop, making the young of the species look blue. If you have ever seen photos of the green tree boas, the new borns are bright, vivid blue...while the adults are green. This same delay in yellow pigment development is what is happening to the "blue" hatchlings that turn green.