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The marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus), also known as the sea iguana, saltwater iguana, or Galápagos marine iguana, is a species of iguana found only on the Galápagos Islands . Unique among modern lizards , it is a marine reptile that has the ability to forage in the sea for algae , which makes up almost all of its diet. [ 3 ]
Marine reptiles are reptiles which have become secondarily adapted for an aquatic or semiaquatic life in a marine environment. Only about 100 of the 12,000 extant reptile species and subspecies are classed as marine reptiles, including marine iguanas , sea snakes , sea turtles and saltwater crocodiles .
Following is a list of marine reptiles, reptiles which are adapted to life in marine or brackish environments. This list is incomplete ; you can help by adding missing items . ( August 2008 )
Monitor lizards are traded globally and are the most common type of lizard to be exported from Southeast Asia, with 8.1 million exported between 1998 and 2007 for the international leather market. [35] Today the majority of the harvesting of feral water monitors occurs in Southeast Asia, in Indonesia, and in peninsular Malaysia. [36]
Lizard is the common name used for all squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, [1] ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains.
Dolichosaurus was a small marine squamate at about 0.5 to 1 meter in total length. [6] Coniasaurus was similarly sized at about 0.5 meters in length. [7] They were elongated (especially apparent in the neck) marine lizards with reduced limbs and small, thin heads.
During the last 20 million years of the Cretaceous period (Turonian–Maastrichtian ages), with the extinction of the ichthyosaurs and pliosaurs, mosasaurids became the dominant marine predators. They themselves became extinct as a result of the K-Pg event at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago.
250 reptile species have been recorded, with about 150 species of snakes [5] and 80 species of lizards. [4] Only 16 of the land snakes are venomous. [ 1 ] Notable among these are the Malayan pit viper , king cobras , Dumeril's monitors , Malay water monitors , and estuarine crocodiles . [ 2 ]