Photo of the Day 412

Crested Iguana, Yaduataba Island, Fiji Islands, 2003

Photograph by Tim Laman

A rare Fijian crested iguana surveys his surroundings from a tree on Yaduataba Island, one of the 333 islands making up Fiji. Discovered by outsiders in 1979, the crested iguana’s numbers are rapidly dwindling due to the brisk spread of introduced species, such as feral cats and black rats.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Hotspots: Preserving Pieces of a Fragile Biosphere," March 2003, National Geographic magazine)