This lumbering great beauty was wandering around freely at Zoo Ave, near San Jose, Costa Rica.

The Zoo is home to rescued and injured wildlife, and they are housed in a mixture of open and secured enclosures. This iguana may have been a resident with freedom to roam in the grounds, but he or she seemed to know the layout and was unconcerned by the few people who were about when I visited.Never having been this close to an iguana I was fascinated to view its skin at close quarters. The variety of patterns, shapes and styles of scales is impressive, topped off with the row of spikes on the spine.

What isn’t obvious in first the picture is how big this creature was, how placid, and how long its tail was, so here’s a full length shot.

I watched it for a while as it pottered about, finally choosing to veer off the path and into some dry vegetation in full sun where it settled down to bask.