Sexing Your Iguana

It can be very difficult to determine the sex of an iguana until it is at least one year old, and even then, some igs are still hard to sex accurately.

Once your ig is about a year old, male sexual characteristics begin to become more prominent. The jowls begin to develop and the femoral pores will begin to enlarge and may develop a waxy substance. Males may also begin to develop fat pads on the back of the head, and you may notice the hemipenal bulges becoming more obvious on the sides of the tail near the vent. As mentioned before, even at a year old it can be hard to determine sex, as some females may show some male-like characteristics and some males may be slow to develop and look more female-like. The photos below show what the femoral pores of a male and female generally look like, and should give you a rough idea of how to tell the two genders apart.

Male iguana - note the enlarged femoral pores on the inside of the thighs.

Female iguana - note the much smaller pores.