Iguana Eye Color

Question
QUESTION: Ms. Diane,

Please, can you tell me if it is normal to have a green iguana with red eyes? I have not seen any other iguanas with red eyes, they are mainly orange. Does the red indicate any sort of infection? The iguana recently had a tail break and perhaps it is exhibiting an infection via eye color. Could it just be that he has red eyes by nature? Please lend your insight.
thanks, Zara

ANSWER: Hi Zara,
They can and do have red in the colored part of their eyes.  When there is a lot of red in what is the white part of the eye, that is usually a sign of something going on be it stress or some illness.
Here is a close up of one of my igs eyes..you can see the red in the colored part.
http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2836937760057405223AeShMn
http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2221349810057405223bgzguH
and here..
http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2278507190057405223emMPOE

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Red Iris   QUESTION: Interesting. I had the opportunity to go to Grand Cayman and work with the blue iguana recovery programme and learned that the Caribbean species of Cyclura all have black feet and red eyes...so I am attaching a picture of one of the iguanas I worked with...you see, the eyes on this iguana are similar in color to the eyes on this particular green iguana I am concerned about. I do not know if this is typical of the green iguana. The eyes are red outside of the pupil, not in the whites of the eyes, it is not red from irritation, it is the iris that is red.
Thank you so much ma'am.

Answer
Hi Zara,
What a beautiful creature!! I am jealous of what you got to do! Thank you for attaching the picture. What a opportunity you had.
I wouldn't worry about that part of the eye being red, especially if all else is fine with the green ig.  IE eating, activity, basking, etc.  As you saw in the links I sent you of one of my green iguanas, her eyes are red in the colored part.  Hers tend to get more red when stressed.  
With your green ig, if the poop is off smelling, then you might want to have a fecal check done as stress can increase their internal parasite load, but again as I said, what you are seeing might just be normal eye coloring for that iguana.