Fini

If the oranges would never rot, and if the leaves would never fall

Look at my jellyfish sprites boy

Sundogs

Asperitas clouds

Russian Light Pillars

Nacreous Clouds

Morning glory clouds

St. Elmo's Fire

The new magic stops working after three days and every spell uses proprietary runes.

So, first thing you need to know is that is a very visibly healthy adult green iguana. Every part of the iguana is sharp. The claws evolved to haul a ten pound lizard up a tree. The spines are like tiny icepicks. The tail is a bullwhip. The teeth evolved to shred leaves, but they'll just as easily shred your flesh. Good luck making a healthy adult iguana do anything they don't wanna. That puts us on our first thing to look at- is the animal capable of defense and getting away, physically? Yes, definitely.

Next thing to know is what does a threatened or scared iguana look like? When an iguana is threatened, it doesn't stand on its hind legs like that; it stands on all fours and puffs itself up to look bigger, aggressively bobs its head (note: head bobbing is a behavior used for a LOT of things, it does need context- for example, they also head bob as part of mating displays), there is hissing, there is tail whipping- iguanas are not subtle creatures. None of this is the behavior of an iguana that feels threatened or is being a threat!

So what does standing like that mean? That's just simple reaching. The iguana sees something they want and is attempting to reach it, and what they want appears to be uppies, because they settle into the human's grip immediately.

Then, we see some GREAT handling from the human. There's really great communication happening between the two of them! The person picks up the iguana very securely- pelvis and pectoral girdles are well supported, and he doesn't grab. (Iguanas typically do NOT like being grabbed around the sides; many of their predators are birds and coming at them from above or gripping the sides is scary!)

As he goes in for the pet, he lets the iguana support their back half on his knee. The hold is secure but not tight; at any point, if the iggy was distressed, they could leave. But they don't- instead, you see them leaning into the pets, actively participating in the behavior. They're not even closing their eyes to block stimulus. They want this to happen.

This is the kind of bond that's possible when you can prove to a big lizard that you're trustworthy, and easily the best iguana video I've seen in a long time. Thank you for tagging me in!

Some green iguana body language resources under the jump!

Really cool write up that links to the original paper that just came out this year (2025)!

animal behaviour study can get a little confusing, because a lot of more specific or advanced behaviours tend to be anecdotal or a one off observation (so even if it seems obvious, like birds having preferences, there’s often a lack of actually repeatable data to back the claim up)

food preparation is a behaviour that’s considered more advanced, and it’s divided into a number of categories: soaking the food, cleaning the food, transporting water, etc. in this case, the novel behaviour is specifically flavouring the food, and showing preference for the noodles dunked in the blueberry soy yoghurt (as opposed to the potatoes, the water, the natural yoghurt, or any other combination)