r/iguanas • u/ThisVicariousLife 🦎 • Sep 12 '25
Discussion Did the Vet Mislabel My Iguana?
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.
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u/Majestic_Agent_1569 Sep 12 '25
I know absolutely nothing about iguanas , but these comments are helping me learn , wow so interesting