Extreme Nature by Mark Carwardine

Author:Mark Carwardine
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-09-26T17:00:00+00:00

Smallest reptile

NAME

Jaragua gecko Sphaerodactylus ariasae

LOCATION

Beata Island, Dominican Republic (Hispaniola)

SIZE

just 1.4–1.8cm (0.5–0.7in) from the tip of the snout to the base of the tail

© S Blair Hedges

If you want to look for new species that are very small or very large, islands are where you are most likely to find them. And what better place for islands than the Caribbean? That’s where the two record-holders for the world’s smallest reptile have been discovered. The first is the Virgin Gorda gecko Sphaerodactylus parthenopion, found in 1964 on the island of Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. Then, in 1998, the Jaragua gecko was discovered on the island of Beata, part of the Dominican Republic’s Jaragua National Park (after which it was named). Both the Virgin Gorda gecko and the Jaragua gecko average just 1.6cm (0.6in) from the tips of their snouts to the base of their tails.

The advantage of being small means it’s easier to hide and you don’t need so much to eat, making it easier to survive on an island when food is more limited. But being very, very small means having a large body surface area relative to body volume, which puts both geckos at risk of dehydration through evaporation. The Jaragua gecko survives by scurrying about in and under moist leaf litter in remnant forest on the island, eating tiny insects, spiders and mites. In fact, scientists think it has probably taken the niche that, on the mainland, would normally be filled by a spider. Though it’s not technically endangered, it may soon be classified as such, because much of the forest where it lives has been logged – barely 10 per cent of the original forest remains in the West Indies.

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