Amblyrhynchus cristatus
The marine iguanas of the Galapagos islands boast a lifestyle shared by no other reptile; like penguins or sea lions, they spend their entire lives on the shoreline, diving into the water for their food. They live exclusively on a diet of green algae, using their blunt jaws to scrape it from submerged rocks. Charles Darwin was famously repulsed by these animals when he first discovered them, and referred to them in his notes as “imps of darkness.”
