(Image: Gergely Biro)
FROM to and we all love a good dragon story. Perhaps that鈥檚 why this shot of fighting male iguanas has a special magic. OK, they don鈥檛 have wings or breathe fire, but these are surely the closest thing we have to dragons.
After looking at the photo for some time, I figured out why it gives me the heebie-jeebies. It鈥檚 the prehistoric expression on the face of the lower animal. Please excuse the anthropomorphising, but there鈥檚 a look of intelligent but inhuman cunning on its face. Just look at the expression.
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Even without invoking the supernatural, green iguanas are pretty cool animals. Found in South and Central America, the lizards have leaf-shaped, super-sharp teeth that can easily slice human skin. They have a third eye on the top of their heads called the parietal eye, which has a primitive retina and lens and is used to sense aerial predators. And in the breeding season the males develop the dramatic coloration seen here.
Hungarian photographer Gergely B铆r贸 got the shot spontaneously. Drifting in a canoe in Costa Rica, he saw the fight and took a quick snap, with no time to compose the image. 鈥淭hey were around 2 metres long, so were pretty big monsters,鈥� B铆r贸 says. 鈥淏ut I didn鈥檛 feel like I was in any danger, as the iguanas were only interested in fighting each other. I was more worried about the caimans in the water and our boat capsizing as I struggled with my equipment to get the shot.鈥�
The image has been commended in the category 鈥淏ehaviour: Cold-blooded Animals鈥� at this year鈥檚 . This and other commended images will be displayed at the Natural History Museum in London from 18 October.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淗ere be dragons鈥�
