We were at Iguaçu (spelled Iguazú on the Argentinian side) to see the spectacular waterfalls, but of course I was looking for lizards too. Earlier in the day I had seen a half dozen or so of these huge tegus strolling about while I was in a moving car or tram. I was beginning to worry that the day would end without me getting a decent photograph of this species. Fortunately in the afternoon we walked past a few that were willing to sit still for me.

The introduced tegus in South Florida were much, much harder to photograph than the cooperative lizards of Brazil. On a day with Dick Bartlett and Jake Scott, we saw three of these impressive creatures, but this crappy through-the-windshield shot was the only photo I managed to get.

This lumbering hulk of a tegu basked on the lodge grounds just in front of a big PVC culvert. If someone approached too near it would dash back into the culvert. Its appearance on our first day in the Pantanal instilled in me hope that we would see lots of lizards in the area. This was a false hope; other than this individual tegu, I photographed only two other lizards, both of them Ameiva ameiva (1, 2).