ROUND ISLAND BURROWING BOA


The Round Island Burrowing Boa or RIBB as I'll refer to it in this blog post, was one of two species of boas that lived on the island of Mauritius.  If that name sounds familiar it is because Mauritius is best known as the island where the Dodo went extinct.

 Round Island is a small island north east of the Mauritius main island (see map below).  The other boas, the Round Island Ground Boa has been saved from extinction by the efforts of zoos, and have recently been returned to the wild on Round Island.  It is thought that between 500 and 1,000 ground boas are now living in the wild.

 For the RIBB though, there is no such luck.  It is assumed to have gone extinct in 1975, when the last sighting was reported.  Black rats, goats, and rabbits decimated Round Island and took their toll on this unique species of snake. Black rats ate many young RIBBs and their main prey, the Telfair's skink.  Even though scientists were able to restock the skinks on the island after the removal of those invasive species, only the RIBB's ground loving cousin remain.

 Additional Resources:

 http://blogs.thatpetplace.com/thatreptileblog/2012/12/12/round-island-boa-reintroduction-back-in-wild-after-a-150-year-absence/#.VuQf-vkrKM8

Map to show location of Round Island off the coast of Mauritius


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

KAWEKAWEAU (DELCOURT'S GIANT GECKO)

Image
The Kawekaweau was the largest member of the gecko family that lived in New Zealand.  It was nearly 24 inches long, which is about twice as large as any other gecko species ever known.  It was the width of a man's wrist and had reddish stripes running the length of its body. Scientists thought that the Kawekaweau was simply a legend for a long time. The name Delcourt comes from the French scientist who rediscovered the only known specimen of of the Kawekaweau in the Natural History Museum of Marseille in 1986. The last recorded living Kawekaweau was in 1870 by a Maori chief.  It is thought that the arrival of Europeans and the invasive species they brought; rats, cats, and weasels took their toll on the Kawekaweau. Additional Resources: http://gizmodo.com/this-specimen-of-an-extinct-giant-gecko-was-found-in-a-1742435773 Drawing from the book, A Gap in Nature The only known specimen of a Kawekaweau
Read more

Visiting Lonesome George in NYC and Martha the Passenger Pigeon in DC

Image
I started this blog  to point out animals you'll never get a chance to meet first hand.  No, I'm not talking about unicorns or centaurs, but about recently extinct animals.  2014 was a big one in extinction news because it marked the 100 year anniversary of the passenger pigeon, when Martha died at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914 at 1pm.  I took my family to the Cincinnati Zoo, but Martha's statue wasn't there because they were building a memorial that opened a few weeks after our visit. My wife and I also got to see the real Lonesome George who was on display in New York at the Natural History Museum, before being shipped back to be displayed in the Galapagos.  
Read more

YUNNAN LAKE NEWT

Image
The Yunnan Lake Newt (YLN) was a newt that lived in the region in and around Kunming Lake in the Yunnan Providence in China.  The YLN was about an inch long and the male and female coloration varied slightly. The Yunnan Lake Newt was last seen in 1979.  As the cities around its lake habitat increased, its population plummeted. Amphibians like frogs, salamanders, and newts are extremely vulnerable to pollution because they absorb water, oxygen, and even toxins through their porous skin.  There are many concerns for many amphibian species today (see 2nd link below). Besides pollution, habitat loss for increased housing also took its toll on the YLN population.  The addition of invasive species were the nail in the coffin for this species.  The newts couldn't compete with the addition of domestic ducks, exotic fish and frogs added to the lake. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: http://www.edgeofexistence.org/amphibians/species_info.php?id=1367 http://frogsaregreen.org/tag/yunnan-lake-n
Read more