Is Florida DOOMED to reptile invasion?

this is peter's rakagama a lizard that is found all across west africa the female agamas are a bit dull but the males are striking with a fancy orange red head and tail but we're not in sierra leone right now we're not in cameroon or ghana nor the congo these lizards and i are nowhere near africa you want some fan to eat some sugar chicken instead we're in florida specifically on the university of miami campus how is it that a west african lizard came to be on an american college campus and why might that be bad news for floridians of both the reptilian and human varieties let's find some invasive species and find out so i'm here in new york city central park by turtle pond most of these turtles shouldn't be here they're the wrong kind of turtles most of the turtles here are red-eared sliders which are native to the mississippi river and gulf of mexico not new york they're popular pets the most traded pet turtle in the world but they can live to be up to 50 years old so pet owners tired of taking care of them often dump them outside so these invasive turtles are causing major problems for the native ones they out-compete them for food for basking sites which is important if you're cold-blooded but our problems here in new york pale in comparison to those of southern florida an invasive reptile hot spot that i recently got the chance to visit florida may very well have the most invasive reptiles of any place on the planet there are three non-native lizards running around for every true florida native some are well known because of how successfully they've spread in their new florida home the earliest report of an invasive reptile here in florida i could find was in 1887 when brown and knolls hitched a ride from cuba on ships other well-known invaders include burmese pythons originally from southeast asia green iguanas and tigues from south america tekku's tikkus tegus and yes our buddy the red eared slider [Music] so for a variety of reasons all these species have gotten a toe hold in florida out competing the native species that can't deal with the sudden competition and devastating prey species that didn't evolve with the threat they pose so what makes southern florida such a good invasion site partially it's because that southern florida has a tropical climate and there's just more reptile species that live in the tropics there's more species that feel at home in southern florida compared to new york city say but as far as invasive species are concerned tropical regions may be more resistant to invasion compared to temperate regions the general idea is that ecological communities in tropical regions are more biodiverse with greater species richness and also stronger evolved interactions between the species tropical communities are efficiently using all the nutrients available to them so a newcomer will have a harder time finding a toehold florida is a bit weird though since it's almost like a tropical island surrounded by ocean and non-tropical land towards the north because of that florida has fewer species than other tropical places which may have made it more vulnerable to invasive species so if the climate alone doesn't explain why florida has so many invasive reptile species what are some other reasons it might be because florida is a world leader in the reptile trade a lot of these invasive species like the red earth slider we saw in new york started out as pets florida also has major ports of entry for reptile import and tons of pet stores and breeders i counted up the reptiles for sale on a major reptile trading site and found that 20 of the reptiles for sale in the us were from florida normal people go on vacation to miami to see south beach or but i'm not a normal person i have two goals for this trip losers number one find some invasive blizzards number two eat a media nosh sandwich i wanted to see two in particular peter's rakagama and green iguanas i wanted to see peter's rakagama because they're just real cool looking fancy boys peter's rockagama hails from west africa and they came over to the u.s via the pet trade starting in the 70s the worrisome thing about these guys is their appetite they're carnivorous and people are particularly worried about them eating the critically endangered miami blue butterfly i only had one day in miami but with the help of citizen science sites like ed maps and i naturalist to plan my reconnaissance i found the gammas real fast one of the spots with the most agama sightings around was on the university of miami campus but over in little havana a few blocks from the popular tourist destination of versailles where i was walking to get a media noche sandwich there were an absolute ton of the west african agamas in the cemetery setting themselves on the gravestones so i saw a ton of small lizards during my day in miami they were essentially everywhere you looked but the one i really wanted to see was the big boy and iguana the big majestic dragon looking guys are native to central and south america and some caribbean islands and they can be longer than i am tall some random forum posts online said that they could be found along canal banks so i headed there and i immediately found a group plus more as i walked along the canal wow wow look at that it's a wild place we have an excellent herpetological luck today so iguanas first showed up in florida in the 1960s unlike agamas they probably got there by hitching a ride on cargo ships although later released pets are probably contributing to the feral population whereas agamas are carnivorous even the rare miami blue butterfly iguanas eat massive amounts of native florida flora native florida flora native florida flora native florida flora so iguanas eat massive amounts of native florida flora including the knickerbean which is a plant that serves as a host for the butterfly so just last year green iguanas were added to a list of reptiles that are prohibited pets in florida the log actually just went into effect last week when i'm filming this which means that iguana sales are no more in florida this next part doesn't actually have anything to do with invasive species but i saw some cool iguana behavior when i was down in florida as i was walking along the canal i saw a male iguana in my path i approached and he bolted but then i realized he had been standing next to what i initially thought was a dead iguana turns out that this male iguana was still breathing so i plopped down my camera and scurried off to see if there was about to be a battle here's what happened [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so this winter male if he keeps besting his competition will go on to mate with females in a large territory each one of those females can lay 20 to 70 eggs in a single burrow so it's no surprise that green iguanas have completely overrun florida so the agama and the iguana two invasive species in florida one new one old one carnivorous the other herbivorous one from all the way over in africa one from relatively close by in the americas but both of them threatened biodiversity in florida and both of them were scarily easy to find in miami so thank you very much for watching if you like sciency videos please check out the other ones in this channel i'm going to go take a page out of the book of my new invasive turtle friends and go enjoy this nice spring day in new york city thanks very much for watching okay what are some other regions some other reasons what are some other regions reasons regions what are some other regions reasons why can't i say reasons nope come on birdie get the [ __ ] together

Channel: Christina Bergey

Views: 63,420

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Id: xk5NDuvm-VE

Length: 9min 17sec (557 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 16 2022