Marine Iguana

Amblyrhynchus cristatus

Status: Vulnerable. Marine iguanas are found in the Galapagos Islands. While clumsy on land, the are graceful swimmers. Their small range leaves them very vulnerable. Introduced predators, often pets or livestock, prey upon their young and their eggs, and since they have few natural predators, they are ecologically naive.

Galapaguenos, the indigenous people of the Galapagos are mostly descended from native people of the Andean region. In the mythology of the ancient Andean people, the amaru is a mythical serpent or dragon type creature that lives underground, or in the watery realms at the bottoms of lakes, rivers, and ponds. Because it is a creature of the under-earth, it was also said to be the cause of tremors and earthquakes.

Accounts recorded by priests and missionaries to the region told of many different physical attributes to the amaru, although they all agreed on its serpentine nature. At times it is two-headed, it is immense in size, it has wings, it rises upon waterspouts, or climbs upon the winds during storms to hover in the clouds. Many of the stories tell of amaru trying to ascend into the upper limits of the sky, but are struck down by lightning before they are able to attain such heights.

References:
Frisancho Velarde, Oscar (2012), Concepcion magico-religiosa de la Medicina en la America Prehispanica. Acta Medica Peruana 29(2 )

Gentile, Margarita E. (2017), El Amaru como emblema de los Incas del Cusco (Siglos XVI-XVII). El Futuro del Pasado, no8