Iggy Lone Star Cafe iguana

A 40-foot lime green iguana looks out from the roof of a zoo hospital in Fort Worth, and it has lived far more adventurously than most sculptures. According to the Fort Worth Zoo and its January 2025 press release, Iggy, made by artist Bob “Daddy-O” Wade and weighing 2,600 pounds, sat for 13 years over the Lone Star Café in New York City, a gathering place for performers such as Willie Nelson, Kinky Friedman, Albert King and Roy Orbison. When the café closed, a Virginia couple bought the iguana and put it on their farm. In 1997 Wade and Dallas financier Monk White bought it back and installed it on Pier 25 in Tribeca. Two years later Fort Worth patron Lee M. Bass, a friend of Wade’s, bought it.

The zoo broke ground in 2007 on its herpetarium, the Museum of Living Art, and Bass and Wade saw that Iggy resembled species inside it. Bass agreed to loan the sculpture, and it was set on top of the zoo’s animal hospital, the Burnett Animal Health Science Center. Over the years it has worn hats for holidays and events, including a block of cheese and a “Terrible Towel” for Super Bowl XLV in 2011.