Seamus Haley

It was a three AM post that probably could have been worded a bit better and dealt with generalizations rather than specifics but... if you took something from it, good enough.

Your iguana was not one of a kind exactly, but definitely few of a kind. Reptiles are all instinct and procedural memory, that doesn't automatically mean that their behaviors or the reasons behind them are simple. Lots of factors come into play when determining why a reptile will behave a certain way; including whole sets of stimulus based on conditions that people barely have the sensory perception to register a lot of the time. The natural behavior of a truly healthy green iguana is generally pretty nasty when judged by the chriteria that would make an ideal pet, they're big, dominant and territorial. That behavior can change dramatically though if they're too cold, too dry, getting a diet that's not 100% perfect or have lingering aftereffects and long term health issues from past negative conditions or injury. Any adult green iguana of either gender that's got qualities that would be seen as making it an interactive social kind of pet has something going on with it that's not ideal for the animal itself. Whole point being, finding one that may be displaying the behavior that you seem to want is going to be coupled with some other issue- what and how severe and what it means for the animal's long term health is a bit of a crapshoot.

Most the bigger monitor species will tend to show some defensive behaviors in response to handling attempts that make 'em something other than what you describe wanting. Again, there are lots of examples of individual animals that vary from the expected behavior of the species but these are exceptions and can't usually be counted on. For... easy to come by in the pet trade species... Niles and croc monitors aren't something that you'd be looking for. Water monitors can go either way but I'd tend to put them in a category to avoid unless you're getting an established full grown adult with a known temperment since juveniles are an unknown quality. Getting a bit smaller, Merten's Water Monitors are a little tougher to find for sale but tend to be a bit more laid back, white throat, black throat and savannahs are *usually* pretty easy to approach and handle. Black roughnecks are probably the most docile monitor I have ever personally encountered when looked at as a species. Argus monitors tend to be pretty defensive and wound up when they're younger mellowing out with age (this is true, to varying degrees, for many species, where the juveniles are far more prone to predation and will display completely different behaviors and responses than the adults. Of course, depending on what kind of predators they have evolved to deal with, some adults get a bit more agressive, as "fight" is a better survival trait than "flight" at full growth- so again, species by species basis but...). Mangroves are a species that I'd tend to call a bit flightier and more nervous but some of the adults end up being pretty docile and lose that edginess. Going even smaller, tree monitors are completely the opposite of what you describe wanting and the ozzy dwarf species (most commonly ackies, although there are a few kimberly rocks floating around), while tempermentally suited to your description tend to stay under two and a half feet total length (often smaller) so... kinda... bottomed out there.

The tegus are definitely worth looking into, they're opportunistic omnivores rather than straight predators and in some ways have behaviors that are much more complex and adaptive than most monitors. The argentine B&Ws are probably the noteable "best" when it comes to a bigger species that passes through docile into actively interactive, although I'd still reccomend a very large enclosure over free roaming.