> Study co-author Simon Scarpetta, an evolutionary biologist at the University of San Francisco, says many iguanas are resistant to heat and starvation because

> Study co-author Simon Scarpetta, an evolutionary biologist at the University of San Francisco, says many iguanas are resistant to heat and starvation because of their slow metabolism and often get shunted between islands on clumps of vegetation. “If you had to think of a vertebrate group that could survive a rafting event across thousands of kilometers of open ocean,” he says, “iguanas are a great choice.” That’s amazing. I didn’t realize there were land animals capable of making a sort of accidental journey lasting months over the open ocean.