La Palma Giant Lizard
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| Gallotia auaritae Mateo, García-Márquez, López Jurado & Barahona, 2001 |
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The La Palma Giant Lizard (Gallotia auaritae) was a giant lacertid (wall lizard) that, as its name indicates, lived in the littoral zone of La Palma in the Canary Islands; its habitat ranged from sea level up to altitudes of 800 m. It probably lived in xerophytic vegetation and was presumably an egg-laying species.
Its decline started 2000 years ago with the arrival of humans on La Palma. It appears to have become extinct in the last 500 years. The main causes of extinction appear to have been introduced cats, consumption by people, and habitat destruction for agriculture. Although the species is believed to be extinct, there is a small chance that it could be rediscovered in a remote or inaccessible location. This happened with other giant lizards of the Canary Islands, like the El Hierro and La Gomera Giant Lizards (rediscovered 1974 and 1999, respectively); the somewhat smaller Tenerife Speckled Lizard was only discovered for the first time in 1996.
This giant lizard was originally described as a subspecies of the El Hierro Giant Lizard (Mateo et al 2001). Later, it was elevated to full species rank (Afonso & Mateo 2003). Specimens from La Palma assigned to G. goliath seem to belong to this taxon instead; if this is correct, they indicate that the average size of this species had been decreasing over the last millennia, possibly due to humans preferring to hunt larger lizards (Barahona et al. 2000).
Unfortunately, the present material of G. auaritae does not allow for sufficiently detailed analyses of its phylogenetic status. Probably it belongs to the simonyi clade like the other giant Gallotia species from the western islands, but whether it actually was as close to G. simonyi as presumed remains unverified. The reason for this is also that it was only discovered after the present species' description that G. goliath was not another local representative of G. simonyi, as was previously assumed, but a more distantly related species (Maca-Meyer 2003).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Afonso, O.M. & Mateo, J.A. (2003): Los lagartos gigantes canarios: conservación creativa de poblaciones mínimas. In: Jiménez, I. & Delibes, M. (eds): Al Borde de la Extinción: Integrando Ciencia, Política y Sociedad en la Recuperación de Especies Amenazadas. Evren, Valencia
- Barahona, F.; Evans, S. E.; Mateo, J.A.; García-Márquez, M. & López-Jurado, L.F. (2000): Endemism, gigantism and extinction in island lizards: the genus Gallotia on the Canary Islands. J. Zool. 250(3): 373-388. DOI:10.1017/S0952836900003101 (HTML abstract)
- Maca-Meyer, N.; Carranza, S.; Rando, J.C.; Arnold, E.N. & Cabrera, V.M. (2003): Status and relationships of the extinct giant Canary Island lizard Gallotia goliath (Reptilia: Lacertidae), assessed using ancient mtDNA from its mummified remains. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 80(4): 659–670. DOI:10.1111/j.1095-8312.2003.00265.x (HTML abstract)
- Mateo, J.A.; García-Márquez, M.; López-Jurado, L.F. & Barahona, F. (2001): Descripción del lagarto gigante de La Palma (Islas Canarias) a partir de restos subfósiles. Revista Española de Herpetología 15: 53-59. [Spanish with English abstract] PDF abstract
- Miras, J.A.M. (2005). Gallotia auaritae. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes a range map and a brief justification of why this species is listed as extinct
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