by New York (AP) – researchers have long wondered how Iguane got Fiji, a collection of remote islands in the South Pacific. Most modern iguanas live in America thousands of miles and a huge ocean.
They thought they might scrub through Asia or Australia before the volcanic activity pushed Fiji so far away.
However, new studies indicate that Iguanas fell out of the 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers lying) millions of (8,000 kilometers) on an area of floating vegetation – masses of uprooted trees and small plants. This trip is seen as a recording as any other country in the country that has ever traveled on the ocean.
Scientists believe that Iguane came from Ecuador and between the islands in the Caribbean on the Galapagos Islands. At first they thought that Fiji could be a little too far for such a trip, but in a new study the researchers inspected the genes of 14 Iguan species, America, the Caribbean and Fiji. They found that the Fijian iguanas were closely related to Iguanas from North America and that the two groups divided themselves off around 31 million years ago.
The researchers have created a statistical model that uses this information and other tidbits about where Iguane live today and how they can spread. It indicated that the Iguane most likely hovered from North America to Fiji.
“In view of what we now know, their result is far the strongest,” said Kevin de Queiroz, an evolutionary biologist in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the new study.
Research was published on Monday in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The trip from North America to Fiji could have taken a few months, but these desert leguanas would have been ideal passengers because they had opposed dehydration and had had the plants under their feet.
“If you had to select a vertebrate to survive a long journey on a raft over an ocean, Iguane would be the one,” said study author Simon Scarpetta from the University of San Francisco in an e -mail.
Many Fijische iguani species are at risk and an invasive green iguanean roams the islands today, said study author Robert Fisher from United States Geological Survey. If you find out where these creatures came from, scientists can equip the tools in order to better protect them in the future.
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