General information about the West Indies

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Definition of the West Indies region

There are several names that have been attributed to the Caribbean or Antilles.  Historically, the word Antilles read Ant-Isles.  The Greek  ‘αντι , meaning opposite and Isles or Iles.  They were commonly called the Caribby-Islands, Caribbies, the Cannibal Islands (named after the ancient inhabitants), the Lucaye Isles and the Camercane Islands (Davies, 1666).

It should be noted that the term West Indies is variable and arbitrarily used by different authors.  The lack of a clear definition regarding what belongs and what doesn’t belong to this region can be frustrating at times.  For the sake of this website and due to our personal interest, we focus on the oceanic islands in the eastern part, including the three islands off the coast of Venezuela; Trinidad, Tobago and Isla de Margarita.  In regards to the above mentioned difficulties, Hedges and coworkers provide a good overview in their recent work where they aim to redefine the term “Caribbean” to include the vast majority of islands .

While we are not disagreeing and find this contribution useful for further research and conservation efforts, we will continue to use the name West Indies.  Historically the West Indies include the Lucayan Archipelago, Lesser Antilles and Greater Antilles.  The term West Indies has been traditionally used  for the whole region (even though the borders were sometimes unclear) whereas in most cases only a sub-region of this region was defined as the Caribbean, which are comprised only of the Greater Antilles but excluded the Lucayan Archipelago & Lesser Antilles.

Biodiversity of Amphibians and Reptiles

One of the first descriptions of the natural history of the region originates from de Rochefort et al in 1665. They provided a good overview of animals they found as well as island geography, botany and cultures .  It is a very interesting read.  Today, when mentioning the word “Caribbean” or “West Indies”, it usually sparks images of tropical island life, warmth, cocktails and easy living.

However, the Caribbean ecosystems are by no means a relaxing place to live in for their non-human inhabitants.  Merciless sun, harsh seasonal conditions, soil that might barely allow only plant growth, water and food as scarce resources make this region challenging for survival.  For evolutionary biologists, in contrary, it is an Eldorado to investigate nature’s strategies for survival.  Hedges at al. find that more than a thousand reptile and amphibian species, displaying a high degree of endemism populate at least 909 of the islands .  This makes the West Indies one of the biodiversity hotspots of the world.  The journey of discovery started by de Rochefort et. al continues and new species are scientifically recognized and described to this today.  The importance of the West Indies as the most biologically dense region, compared to the rest of the world, is because the islands lay claim to (Hedges, 2006):

1. 3% of all amphibian species
2. 6.3% of all reptile species
3. The West Indies are only 0.15% of the global land area
4. Almost all species are native to one bank or one island

Trinidad and Tobago hepetofauna, given their geographical proximity, are a very good example of species endemism versus mainland distribution :

• Trinidad and Tobago share 39 species
• Trinidad has 51 species not found on Tobago
• Tobago has 3 species not found on Trinidad

Conservation

Conservation of species and ecosystems is a challenging issue in a world dominated by humans. The biological diversity of the Bahamian archipelago today suffers from the ‘tragedy of the commons’ (Sealey 2002).  Islands in particular face a set of challenges different from mainland ecosystems. Island ecosystems are more fragile due to the limitations of space and as a result suffer more severely from man made alterations of ecosystems.  Biodiversity on islands is smaller resulting in fewer taxa, thus invasive species are more likely to negatively impact native species.  The gene pool is often shallower and the population size smaller compared to mainland sister taxa.  Several conservation efforts are being made on various islands, some of which show excellent progress.  We aim to support conservation efforts with knowledge, publicity and try to function as an ex-situ backup system to preserve species outside their natural habitat.

Geopolitical Situation

Politically the West Indies consist of 13 independent states as well as 19 territories belonging to other countries. These are:

Distribution map of West Indian Boas

Each flag represents a single species or subspecies and the location of the flag represents the type location as originally described. Click on a flag to see the species occurring there and then on the link to get to the species account.

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Continue to Conservation of West Indian Herpetofauna

Citations