Iguanas may have pulled off a 5000 mile voyage on a raft of floating vegetation to get to Fiji. Researchers have long wondered how iguanas got to the collection of remote islands in the South Pacific.

There are 45 different species of Iguanidae in the Caribbean and the tropical, subtropical and desert areas of North, Central, and South America, including the marine iguanas of the Galapágos and the chuckwallas in the American Southwest.

Fiji’s iguanas embarked on one of the most astonishing ocean journeys in history, rafting nearly 5,000 miles from North America to the South Pacific. Scientists once believed they came from South America or a now-extinct Pacific lineage,