Jingszo !

Previously, biologists had proposed that Fiji iguanas may have descended from an older lineage that was more widespread around the Pacific but has since died out, leaving Brachylophus as the sole iguanids in the western Pacific Ocean. Another option was that the iguanas hitchhiked from tropical parts of South America and then through Antarctica or even Australia, though there is no genetic or fossil evidence to support this.

While sailors today can take advantage of favorable winds to reach Fiji from California in about a month, an iguana—or more likely a group of iguanas—would probably have taken much longer to ride flotsam through the doldrums and across the equator to Fiji and Tonga, where this group of iguanas is found.

Luckily, iguanas are large and herbivorous and used to long periods without food and water. And if the flotsam consisted of uprooted trees, the raft itself would have provided food.