Reptiles - Artensterben

Illustration of the Floreana giant tortoise — once one of the most distinctive giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands, today probably extinct in its original form.

16. March 2026 Doreen Fräßdorf

Floreana giant tortoise: From extinction to return

A subspecies of the Galapagos tortoise When the Floreana giant tortoise was still alive, it was part of the extraordinary tortoise fauna of the Galapagos Islands. Hardly anywhere else on Earth did a comparable diversity of giant land tortoises evolve—adapted to different islands, volcanoes, climate zones, and food resources. Today,

One of the few museum specimens of the extinct Guadeloupe ameiva. (© Laure Pierre, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

15. January 2026 Doreen Fräßdorf

Guadeloupe ameiva—isolation, colonization & the end of an island species

Islands under pressure The West Indies—including the Lesser Antilles—are among the most species-rich regions in the world. Many lizard and snake species are found exclusively there. These endemic species have adapted over millennia to the conditions of individual islands. Yet this very specialization makes them particularly vulnerable: when habitats are

The Tonga ground skink is known from only two specimens collected on Tongatapu in the early 19th century. The species reached a snout–vent length of almost 18 centimeters, plus tail. (© Journal, German & Ineich, Ivan & Böhme, Wolfgang. (2024). Was it premature to declare the giant Tongan Ground Skink Tachygyia microlepis extinct?. Salamandra. 60. 82-93.)

20. July 2024 Doreen Fräßdorf

Tongan Ground Skink

From the South Pacific to the museum—the last Tongan ground skinks The Tongan ground skink, a giant lizard, is known only from two specimens that are now housed in the Natural History Museum of Paris. The French doctors and naturalists Jean-René-Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard collected the two animals

Replica of Delcourt's giant gecko or Kawekaweau gecko from the Lille Natural History Museum in France. (© Musée d'Histoire Naturelle de Lille, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

26. May 2024 Doreen Fräßdorf

Delcourt’s Giant Gecko

The largest gecko in the world … In the early 1980s, French museum employee Alain Delcourt discovered a forgotten specimen of a single stuffed giant gecko in the basement of the Natural History Museum of Marseille, which had previously been on public display for years. This species was previously unknown

Reptiles endemic to Christmas Island: Lister's gecko (left), Christmas Island forest skink (center), and Christmas Island blue-tailed skink (right). While the Christmas Island forest skink has been completely extinct since 2014, the other two species are extinct in the wild and survive only thanks to captive breeding programs. (© Biodiversity Heritage Library, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

26. April 2023 Doreen Fräßdorf

Christmas Island forest skink

Another loss for Australia’s fauna The Christmas Island forest skink is, alongside the Christmas Island pipistrelle (2009) and the Bramble Cay melomys (between 2009 and 2011), among the most recent losses suffered by Australia’s wildlife. The last known Christmas Island forest skink was named Gump—a female that died in human

Photo of the head of a Jamaican giant galliwasp in the Natural History Museum in London. The specimen of the lizard was probably collected in the 19th century. (© Simon J. Tonge, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

20. February 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Jamaican giant galliwasp

Last seen in 1851 The Jamaican giant galliwasp, endemic exclusively to the Caribbean island of Jamaica, belongs to the family of diploglossids (Diploglossidae)—lizards with small but well-developed legs. A report written around 1850 by the English naturalist Philip H. Gosse indicates that the Jamaican giant galliwasp was still commonly found

A photo of the Antigua racer (Alsophis antiguae), native to the Lesser Antilles island of Antigua, which was considered the rarest snake in the world in the 1990s. Like the Jamaican racer, it belongs to the colubrid family and the subfamily Dipsadinae. (© Wallamalloo69 at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

20. February 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Jamaican racer

Rare or extinct? The English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse described the black racer or Jamaican racer in the mid-19th century as one of the most common snakes in Jamaica. It occurred both in the lowlands and in the mountains of the island. By the mid-20th century, the Jamaican racer had

Illustration of the Cape Verde giant skink by J. Terrier from 1885. Males could reach a body length of around 50 centimeters, females just under 43 centimeters (including tail). The animals weighed almost half a kilo. (© J. Terrier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

21. June 2021 Doreen Fräßdorf

Cape Verde Giant Skink

Ilhas Desertas—the terra typica of the Cape Verde giant skink Organisms that occur in isolated ecosystems such as islands are often adapted to the extreme conditions prevailing there. They exhibit characteristics such as dwarfism or gigantism and often lack defensive mechanisms due to the absence of predators, setting them apart

The extinct Antiguan curly-tailed lizard, like the still-living Northern curly-tailed lizard Leiocephalus carinatus (pictured), belongs to the genus of curly-tailed lizards. (© Ianaré Sévi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

27. September 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

Antiguan curly-tailed lizard

A reptile of disgusting appearance A Mrs. Lanaghan (also Lanagan) provided in 1844 in Antigua and the Antiguans a description of a reptile that could be the Antiguan curly-tailed lizard. She described a ground-dwelling lizard that was “considerably larger” than those in trees. Along its body ran “longitudinal blood-red stripes”