Being a reptile owner, you might be wondering if your Iguana is smart enough to know that you exist. Therefore, in this article going to learn how intelligent Iguanas are.
Depending upon personality, some reptile tends to be brighter than others. Here, we will first learn they are Iguanas smart, and we will also learn if they can know what specific words mean. Therefore, read on to learn how intelligent Iguanas are.
are Iguanas smart?
Yes, Iguanas are probably one of the smartest of all reptiles. They can recognize not only their owner but also their family. They are known to identify their owner and display a significant degree of problem-solving nature. Depending upon intuition, an Iguana can learn many other things and mimic other reptiles or their subspecies.
Being brilliant reptiles, they can quickly solve problems by mimicking or imitating other snakes. As Iguanas are more intelligent than a few lizards, you will still need to learn these reptiles’ actual capability and intelligence level.
Every Iguanas owner must know if their pet can respond to negative or positive experiences or not. Interestingly, Iguanas are capable of remembering patterns and routines, which might be helpful for you to train or tame them in some aspects of their behavior.
5 Signs Of Iguana Intelligence
In captivity, Iguanas have been noted imitating other reptiles’ behavior and signals for years. Many pets are kept in the same room where the Iguana’s tank is placed, and therefore it leads the Iguanas to remember and learn routines and patterns from those other pets. Consequently, we will look at the five signs of Iguana’s smartness.
1. Surprisingly, Iguanas are conscious of entities apart from themselves, and they can recognize and acknowledge other iguanas while communicating by nodding or waving to each other. Recognition of other reptiles is an excellent indicator of the Iguana’s intelligence, and it also applies to the other pets and animals in the captive environment.
2. Do you know that Iguanas are plentiful at escaping. They are very popular as an escape artist who can learn different ways to get out of their tank. You must avoid getting your Iguanas out of their tank without supervision. Other than this, it would help if you made sure that the tank of your Iguanas has a cover on the top.
3. Just like other reptiles, Iguana can also adopt an aggressive posture and show a discount towards the person or animal they had a bad or painful experience with. This behavior also indicates that Iguana can remember positive and negative experiences and learn from them.
4. Do you know that Iguana is food motivated, and they always look to follow routines around feeding time if kept in captivity. It would be best if you always were considered keeping their food bowl in a single place every time inside their tank so that your Iguanas always have to come in that spot when you feed them.
Other than this, you should also call your Iguana’s name before you serve food, and this will make the Iguana remember the sound of its name and associate it positively with food.
5. Iguanas can take some time to adjust to a change in the environment or your presence if you have just adopted one and set it up in its environment.
Once your Iguanas adapt to the change, they will recognize you and differentiate you from other humans. It would help if you looked at strengthening the bond between you two so that your Iguana associates you with pleasuring experiences like cuddling or eating.
Can I Train My Iguana?
After knowing that they are one of the most intelligent reptiles globally, one of the most common questions is if you can train them or not. Iguanas are not very difficult to train on routine, especially potty training. However, they are not capable of learning how to perform tricks for you, just like cats or dogs.
But they can get a response to different words you say. There was an experiment taken by researchers at the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom to learn if they could be trained or not. This was done by placing the trained Iguanas with the untrained ones.
The task was to open the door to access its food. It’s no surprise that trained Iguanas were able to open the door to access the food.
But interestingly, the untrained one also managed to open it and had access to food just by imitating the trained Iguanas. Therefore, it shows that Iguanas are trainable and capable of learning skills by imitating other reptiles.
It would help if you always made your Iguanas associate you with pleasable moments instead of fear, anger, or pain. Make sure always to give positive attention to your Iguanas and feed them nutritious but tasty food like mealworms, fruits, and even superworms.
How to Tame your Iguana?
Training Them To Recognise Its Name
Before training your Iguanas, it is essential always to spend time strengthening the bond and gaining your pet’s trust. If your Iguanas don’t trust you, they will feel stressed. If stressed out, Iguanas will open hide from you and even another cagemate.
If your Iguanas trust you, then it is very much possible to train them and make them respond to some activities you want. You can train stone to recognize its name, acces the designated place to have their food, locate a place to poop, identify you or the people who are offering food, escape danger, and wave to people or visitors.
All these skills can be taught to any Iguanas if you train them in one skill for a given period. Always know that Iguanas can never master all these skills simultaneously. Adding to this, Iguanas are shy by nature, and it can be almost impossible to train them if it is new or unless you have a powerful bond between you two.
If you want to Train Your Iguanas to recognize its name, then the best thing you could do is call its name when you are offering them food. Before you provide or serve their food, it is best to contact your Iguana’s name. This will make your Iguanas associate its name sound with favorable feeding time. Over time, the Iguana will be able to recognize its name.
Training To Access Place To Have Its Food
It is always best to train an Iguanas to have its food on its own. You should consider keeping their food bowl in a single place and stick to it. Always offer them in that bowl and call its name.
That particular place will let your Iguana get the notion about the designated lunch or dinner for them and to access its meal every day. Therefore, with proper dedication and patients, Iguanas will be trained to access their food when they are hungry.
Interesting Further Reading
- 3 Best Tanks For Iguanas: What Size Tank For Iguana?
- How To Take Care Of A Blue Iguana? (2022)
- How Long Does It Take For An Iguana To Grow?
Training To Recognise You & Come Near To You
If you want to make your Iguanas come near you, then the best thing you can do is gain your Iguana’s trust first. You can do this by touching and handling your Iguanas more often but not for a long time. Adding to this, you should consider hand-feeding Iguanas.
Giving a bathtime and spending a lot of time with them will also create recognition. You should also let your Iguanas out of their tank and watch it from a distance.
If your Iguanas seem to be stressed, always keep a fair distance between you two so that you don’t create fear or tension. When hand feeding them up, watch out for your fingers as they may bite you, but it will be harmless.
Last but not least, you should always wash your hand every time you handle Iguanas so that you won’t have & pass salmonella to anyone. You should also never restrain your Iguanas by grabbing its tailor; it will get detached. It is best to stroke your Iguana’s back, and head to the reassure then.
FAQ
Conclusion
After knowing that Iguanas are intelligent and can imitate other Iguana routines and behavior, you might be looking to train them. Remember that you first have to gain your pet’s trust before Training it. Otherwise, it will be a very stressful session for your pet.
Each training session should be short but exciting to Iguanas. Iguanas are trainable but only when they are comfortable. Over time, with dedication and patience, Iguana can associate its name with food or your presence.
Even though the Iguana is not the most intelligent reptile in this world, I can attest that Iguana is smart and can learn with continuous training.
94% of pet owners say their animal pal makes them smile more than once a day. In 2007, I realized that I was made for saving Animals. My father is a Vet, and I think every pet deserves one. I started this blog, “InPetCare”, in 2019 with my father to enlighten a wider audience.