Little Tobago

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Little Tobago
1012littletobago.JPG
Looking across to St. Giles Island from Little Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago adm location map.svg
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Little Tobago
Location of Little Tobago
Geography
Location Caribbean Sea
Coordinates 11°18′N60°31′W / 11.300°N 60.517°W / 11.300; -60.517 Coordinates: 11°18′N60°31′W / 11.300°N 60.517°W / 11.300; -60.517
Archipelago Lesser Antilles
Adjacent bodies of waterCaribbean Sea, Atlantic Ocean
Area1 km2 (0.39 sq mi)
Length1.9 km (1.18 mi)
Width1.4 km (0.87 mi)
Highest elevation37 m (121 ft)
Administration
Ward Tobago
ParishSt. John
Additional information
Time zone
Little Tobago Little Tobago.JPG
Little Tobago
Red-billed tropicbird nest on Little Tobago. Phaethon aethereus Little Tobago.jpg
Red-billed tropicbird nest on Little Tobago.

Little Tobago (or Bird of Paradise Island) is a small island off the northeastern coast of Tobago, and part of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

Contents

The island supports dry forest. It is an important breeding site for seabirds such as red-billed tropicbird, Audubon's shearwater, brown booby, brown noddy, sooty and bridled terns. A few pairs of white-tailed tropicbirds are also nesting here.

Little Tobago is also a good site from which to see birds which breed on neighbouring small islands, including red-footed booby and magnificent frigatebird. The latter species is frequently seen harassing the tropicbirds, boobies and terns.

A few species of reptiles have been recorded on Little Tobago. Among them are lizards such as Green Iguanas, Ameiva atrigularis , Rainbow whiptails, Antilles leaf-toed geckos, Turnip-tailed geckos, Ocellated geckos ( Gonatodes ocellatus), Mole's geckos ( Sphaerodactylus molei), Allen's bachias ( Bachia heteropa alleni), and snakes including Boddaert's tropical racers ( Mastigodryas boddaerti ) and Oliver's parrot snakes ( Leptophis coeruleodorsus).

Among the more conspicuous of the invertebrate fauna on the island are large terrestrial hermit crabs.

The sea between Tobago and Little Tobago is shallow, and glass-bottomed boats enable the attractive corals and brightly coloured tropical fish to be seen on the crossing. It is a popular area for snorkelling and diving, especially on Angel Reef in front of Goat Island.

History

In 1908 the British politician and businessman Sir William Ingram purchased Little Tobago in order to turn it into a bird sanctuary. The next year he introduced the greater bird of paradise (Paradisaea apoda) to the island in an attempt to save the species from overhunting for the plume trade in its native New Guinea. The bird's plumage was particularly fashionable in women's hats. Forty-seven juvenile birds were introduced to the island, having been transported on a German ocean liner. [1]

After Ingram's death in 1924 his heirs deeded the island to the Government of Trinidad and Tobago as a wildlife sanctuary. The birds survived on the island until at least 1958 when they were filmed by a National Geographic crew. There are no reliable records after 1963 when Hurricane Flora hit the island and the population is presumed to be extinct.

View of Little Tobago from Blue Waters Inn, Speyside, Trinidad and Tobago, Tobago, with Goat Island nearer on the right. View of Little Tobago from Blue Waters Inn.jpg
View of Little Tobago from Blue Waters Inn, Speyside, Trinidad and Tobago, Tobago, with Goat Island nearer on the right.

See also

Related Research Articles

Biota of Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago are continental islands with a geologically very recent history of direct land bridge connection to South America. As a result, unlike most of the Caribbean Islands, Trinidad and Tobago supports a primarily South American flora and fauna and has greater diversity of plant and animal species than the Antilles. However, rates of endemism are lower than in the rest of the Caribbean because there has been less time for genetic isolation from mainland populations because of the history of land bridge connections and hence fewer opportunities for speciation, and so a greater proportion of the species in Trinidad and Tobago are also found on the South American mainland. Trinidad is nearer to mainland South America and has been directly connected to the mainland via land bridges more often and for longer periods than Tobago. This, as well as Trinidad's larger size and more varied topography and hydrology compared to that of Tobago allow greater species and ecosystem diversity on the former compared to that on the later of the islands.

White-tailed tropicbird Species of bird

The white-tailed tropicbird(Phaethon lepturus) is a tropicbird. It is the smallest of three closely related seabirds of the tropical oceans and smallest member of the order Phaethontiformes. It is found in the tropical Atlantic, western Pacific and Indian Oceans. It also breeds on some Caribbean islands, and a few pairs have started nesting recently on Little Tobago, joining the red-billed tropicbird colony. In addition to the tropical Atlantic, it nests as far north as Bermuda, where it is locally called a "longtail".

Fauna of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands

The terrestrial fauna of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is unsurprisingly depauperate, because of the small land area of the islands, their lack of diverse habitats, and their isolation from large land-masses. However, the fauna dependent on marine resources is much richer.

Great Tobago Island

Great Tobago is an uninhabited island of the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, located, along with sister island Little Tobago, approximately six miles west of Jost Van Dyke. The Tobagos are the westernmost of the British Virgin Islands. At 210 acres (85 ha) in size, it is surrounded by steep cliffs that also extend below the water. Since the 1990s, Great Tobago, Little Tobago islands, and nearby Mercurious and Watson Rocks are protected as part of the National Parks Trust.

Dog Island is an uninhabitated small island of 207 ha located approximately 13 km (8.1 mi) to the north-west of Anguilla. It is low and rocky, with three small cays off the west and north coasts. The coastline is characterised by low cliffs alternating with sandy beaches. Large ponds lie inside two of the beaches. Dog Island lies west of the Prickley Pear Cays.

References

  1. ↑ Abe, Naoko (2019). 'Cherry' Ingram; the Englishman who Saved Japan's Blossoms (1 ed.). London: Chatto & Windus. p. 55.
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