I’m headed to Pinel today with a class from Sister Regina Primary School. Below is a photo of the first tropical house gecko ever documented on Pinel. The data about which reptiles are living on the various smaller islands and offshore rocks in the Caribbean is still incomplete. I have personally found a few species on various rocks and islets around St. Martin that were previously undocumented.
The tropical house gecko is usually considered an introduced species in the Americas, but it is good to know the range of both native and introduced species in the Caribbean. Smaller islands can be very important ecologically. For example, they are typically mongoose-free because mongooses really, really don’t like to swim. Because of this, reptile populations may survive on satellite islands even after being extirpated on larger islands. Smaller islets may also have simpler food webs, so they can be a good place to do research into the interaction between species.
