Welcome to The Daily Iguana, the tale of a small green iguana rescued from a pet shelter.
The name came about in relation to a website called The Daily Coyote, about raising an orphaned coyote puppy.
Like Charlie, the coyote, our iguana, Fio, is extraordinarily beautiful. He wears a coat of perfect green scales, each one a different size and shape, from the pointy spikes along his back to the impossibly long toes, each tipped with a nearly microscopic pointy toenail.
His clear bright eyes sparkle with attitude. His past is a mystery. Someone must have brought him to the shelter, but before that, we can only guess.
Was he captured in a tropical country, shaken out of tree perhaps and loaded up with many others to be sent to a pet store? Did he come from a breeder? The only certainty is that he is underweight for his assumed age of 16 months.
The vet said he probably had worms, and squirted medicine into his tiny pink mouth, a most distressing sight. But afterwards, his appetite improved. He has been eating greens and berries ever since, developing a plump little scaly belly and possibly growing into the creature he imagines himself to be.