The tropical thornytail iguana has a resource-defense polygyny social structure with  one sexually mature male to a group of females and juveniles of varied stages.
Resource-defense polygyny means the females do not necessarily live in extremely close quarters, but the resources the females need are clustered together.
This creates a group of females, and the resources they need, that a male can claim as his territory.
This allows the male to be polygynous with minimal effort defending a resource-based territory.
In the case of tropical thornytail iguanas, usually one group of lizards occurs per tree with one dominant male.
 In the few cases where  two large adult males are found per tree, the older male took the dominant role and displayed the orange head and black body of a sexually mature male, whereas the other male displayed the coloration patterns of an adult female.
The lack of coloration shown by the younger male may be because the presence of a large old male suppresses the reproductive receptivity of the younger male.
In cases where only one lizard is in a tree, it is generally a male.
The tropical thornytail iguana has a resource-defense polygyny social structure with  one sexually mature male to a group of females and juveniles of varied stages. Resource-defense polygyny means the females do not necessarily live in extremely close quarters, but the resources the females need are clustered together. This creates a group of females, and the resources they need, that a male can claim as his territory. This allows the male to be polygynous with minimal effort defending a resource-based territory. In the case of tropical thornytail iguanas, usually one group of lizards occurs per tree with one dominant male.  In the few cases where  two large adult males are found per tree, the older male took the dominant role and displayed the orange head and black body of a sexually mature male, whereas the other male displayed the coloration patterns of an adult female. The lack of coloration shown by the younger male may be because the presence of a large old male suppresses the reproductive receptivity of the younger male. In cases where only one lizard is in a tree, it is generally a male.
Uracentron flaviceps