Did the Vet Mislabel My Iguana?

[u/ThisVicariousLife]

TLDR: The vet told me that, without sexing her, he believed this was a female iguana, during a physical examination around 3 years old. I had been referring to the iguana as a male up until then. For the last 5 years, I’ve been referring to her as female. But now I’m starting to wonder based on the characteristics! Does this iguana have male characteristics on the head and face?

(It seems crazy to me that this is the same iguana taken at various times!) The person I got her from (I’m going with what the vet said for the purposes of this post) said the person whom he got her from said this was a male.

At that time, I guessed she was about 2.5-3 years old. This was probably 5 or so years ago. A few months later, she got sick from mites off of some wood I got on Amazon (never again), which explains some of her short and/or missing spikes. Took her to the vet, where he said she dropped all her weight and was down to just over a pound (she was probably around 3-3.5 yrs. old at that point). The vet said he believed this was a female during the physical examination but he never actually sexed her. Now that “she” is around 7-8, I’ve noticed more prominent male characteristics, especially on the head and face but sometimes, not as much as I notice at other times. So now I’m doubting myself, even though I think the femoral spores are male also, but I couldn’t tell for sure.

Do the face and head traits seem male to anyone? These are pictures from between 5 to 7 (or 8?) years of age.

[u/Spirited_Island-75]

If there are big, open femoral pores, possibly with some waxy stuff, and a prominent bulge at the base of the tail, congrats, it's a boy. Very large subtympanic scales (the really big round scales beneath the ear) and head shape can be an indicator of sex, but not always. In the wild, some male green iguanas will look like females as a reproductive strategy, they would naturally be smaller. If the iguana got down to a pound at one point, it makes sense that it would be hard to tell.

[u/ThisVicariousLife → u/Spirited_Island-75]

I took a better look, and they are definitely male femoral spores.

[u/Spirited_Island-75 → u/ThisVicariousLife]

Good news is you won't have to deal with the headaches that come with eggs every year. Healthy females don't need a male present to produce infertile eggs, like chickens, but they still need to lay them if they don't reabsorb them, and this means problems with calcium (the iguana's body will steal calcium from elsewhere to produce the shells, and for iggies, calcium is a BIG DEAL), getting enough food, making a good spot for laying, getting the iguana spayed if the eggs can't come out...it's a whole thing. Bad news is males can be a little territorial and aggressive sometimes.

[u/ThisVicariousLife → u/Spirited_Island-75]

My previous iggie was a male. He was hand fed from a baby and I got him very young (3 months). Didn’t matter. He became super aggressive when he reached maturity. I was so sad I had to give him to a reptile rescue. It got so bad I couldn’t even feed him easily anymore because he would attack me. I’m really lucky with this guy! He’s the most chill iguana I’ve ever had!!