Alinea luciae (St Lucia Skink)

[simontonge]

Alinea luciae is a newly recognised species of skink previously lumped in Mabuya. It was endemic to St Lucia and is known from only 5 museum specimens - MCZ and BMNH(4), the last collected in about 1889. As with most terrestrial reptiles in the Caribbean the cause of its probable extinction is the introduction of the mongoose.
The source is Blair Hedgea & Caitlin Conn (2012) A new skink fauna from Caribbean islands. Zootaxa: 3288 1-244

[Melanie]

Full article online:

www.hedgeslab.org/pubs/237.pdf

[surroundx]

Jun 2, 2012 23:35:17 GMT Melanie said:

Full article online:

www.hedgeslab.org/pubs/237.pdf

The correct address is:

www.hedgeslab.org/pubs/235.pdf

[Sebbe]

Listed as Extinct on the basis that this species is not known to survive either on Saint Lucia or on any of its satellites, all of which have been well-surveyed over many years, with the likely agent of its extinction being the introduction of mongoose and rats roughly contemporary with the known specimens. Although skinks elsewhere in the Caribbean have been found to survive on small mongoose-free islands, there is no reasonable prospect that this large skink could have survived on Saint Lucia's satellites, which have been subject to intensive work and which represent the only remaining refugia for another lizard species lost from the Saint Lucia mainland. While the continued survival of a remote mainland population cannot be completely ruled out, this island has been subject to sufficiently intensive herpetological survey work that there is thought to be no reasonable doubt that this species is extinct.

This species is known only from the island of Saint Lucia in the Lesser Antilles. No precise localities are known (Hedges and Conn 2012)

This species was considered extinct as early as Barbour (1937). Four specimens are known, all in the British Museum, with an accession date of 1889 (Hedges and Conn 2012). This was a very large terrestrial lizard, but has never been found since despite a number of targeted surveys by herpetologists visiting the island, although there have been very few visits to the highest elevations.

www.iucnredlist.org/details/44579175/0

[surroundx]

Miralles, Aurélien et al. (2009). Molecular systematics of Caribbean skinks of the genus Mabuya (Reptilia, Scincidae), with descriptions of two new species from Venezuela. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 156(3): 598-616. [Abstract]