The design of GPS tracking devices and the related data collection infrastructure is an old task that still presents several research challenges from both a technical and biological point of view. Weight, size, and power consumption of such devices must be made compatible with small-sized species so as not to interfere with their lives and habits. To target the design of the monitoring device and the data collection infrastructure, we choose the Galápagos Pink Land Iguana (Conolophus marthae) as a reference case. While the monitoring area is relatively small, the difficulty of the terrain, the lack of any available communication infrastructure and hard logistics offer several challenges. In this paper we present: (i) the board designed and developed by an interdisciplinary collaboration; (ii) the energy budget of the WSN device; (iii) the analysis for the selection of the frequency bands. © Springer International Publishing AG 2018.