The Caribbean skink radiation. Islands identified by name have (or had) mabuyine skinks; others--notably Cuba--do (or did) not.
Think Caribbean lizard diversity and you think of anoles, dwarf geckos, perhaps curly tailed lizards and whiptails. But skinks don’t generally come to mind. Heck, I almost never see skinks in the Caribbean and, anyway, their diversity is very low, with only six Caribbean species.
Previously considered conspecific
Until now. In a recently published monograph, Hedges and Conn have scrutinized the genus Mabuya, using both molecular and morphological characters, and have more than doubled the number of species, from 26 to 61, which they have broken into 16 genera (and, as a sidenote, they also split the family Scincidae into seven families). That so many species went undetected is perhaps not surprising, in that Mabuya, like most skinks, all look alike, with very few characters available to distinguish them. Moreover, a trend of species lumping has occurred historically, obscuring sometimes great differences among taxa, as illustrated in the photo to the left.
Of the 61 species, 39—in six genera—occur on Caribbean islands. Most occur on a single island, and most islands only have one species, though as many as three occur on Hispaniola and St. Thomas, and two on a number of islands. Oddly, Cuba has none. Like anoles, to which they no doubt aspire,
Read More
In the link below, select the Download or Print button to download a 12 page illustrated children’s book (pre-K to early Elem.) titled: Anoles by Day and Geckos at Night in PDF format. The book is iPad compatible if loaded into your iBooks library under the PDF option. I welcome your professional feedback on content and urge you to share the story with young friends and family members.
