The Netherlands Antilles was a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The country consisted of several island territories located in the Caribbean Sea. The islands were also informally known as the Dutch Antilles. The country came into being in 1954 as the autonomous successor of the Dutch colony of Curaçao and Dependencies, and was dissolved in 2010. The former Dutch colony of Surinam, although it was relatively close by on the continent of South America, did not become part of Netherlands Antilles but became a separate autonomous country in 1954. All the island territories that belonged to the Netherlands Antilles remain part of the kingdom today, although the legal status of each differs. As a group they are still commonly called the Dutch Caribbean, regardless of their legal status.
Bonaire is an island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is Kralendijk, located near the ocean on the lee side of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC islands located 80 km off the coast of Venezuela. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, the ABC islands lie outside Hurricane Alley. The islands have an arid climate that attracts visitors seeking warm, sunny weather year round. Bonaire is a popular snorkeling and scuba diving destination because of its multiple shore diving sites and easy access to the island's fringing reefs.
The ABC islands are the three western-most islands of the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea that lie north of Falcón State, Venezuela. In order alphabetically they are Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. All three islands are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, although they remain outside the European Union. Aruba and Curaçao are autonomous, self-governing constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, while Bonaire is a special municipality of the Netherlands proper.
The Netherlands Antilles national football team was the national team of the former Netherlands Antilles and was controlled by the Nederlands Antilliaanse Voetbal Unie. The NAVU consisted of Curaçao and Bonaire. Aruba split in 1986 and has its own team.
The Netherlands Antilles was an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was dissolved on 10 October 2010.
The Caribbean bioregion is a biogeographic region that includes the islands of the Caribbean Sea and nearby Atlantic islands, which share a fauna, flora and mycobiota distinct from surrounding bioregions.
Oryzomyini, or rice rat, is a tribe of rodents in the subfamily Sigmodontinae of family Cricetidae. It includes about 120 species in about thirty genera, distributed from the eastern United States to the southernmost parts of South America, including many offshore islands. It is part of the clade Oryzomyalia, which includes most of the South American Sigmodontinae.
Megalomys is a genus of rodent in the family Cricetidae, part of the tribe Oryzomyini. The genus contains five large rodents from various Caribbean islands, all of which are now extinct. The last species to survive was M. desmarestii from Martinique, which became extinct after the Mount Pelée eruption in 1902.
The following is an alphabetical list of topics related to the former nation of the Netherlands Antilles.
The blunt-toothed giant hutia is an extinct species of giant hutia from Anguilla and Saint Martin that is estimated to have weighed between 50 and 200 kg. It was discovered by Edward Drinker Cope in 1868 in a sample of phosphate sediments mined in an unknown cave in Anguilla and sent to Philadelphia to estimate the value of the sediments. It is the sole species of the genus Amblyrhiza in the fossil family Heptaxodontidae.
"Ekbletomys hypenemus" is an extinct oryzomyine rodent from the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, Lesser Antilles. It was described as the only species of the subgenus "Ekbletomys" of genus Oryzomys in a 1962 Ph.D. thesis, but that name is not available under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and the species remains formally unnamed. It is currently referred to as "Ekbletomys hypenemus" in the absence of a formally available name. The species is now thought to be extinct, but association with introduced Rattus indicates that it survived until before 1500 BCE on Antigua.
Megalomys audreyae, known as the Barbudan (?) muskrat or the Barbuda giant rice-rat, is an extinct oryzomyine rodent from Barbuda in the Lesser Antilles. Described on the basis of a single mandible with the first molar missing and an isolated upper incisor, both of uncertain but Quaternary age, it is one of the smaller members of the genus Megalomys. Little is known about the animal, and its provenance and distinction from "Ekbletomys hypenemus", an even larger extinct oryzomyine that also occurred on Barbuda, have been called into question. The toothrow in the lower jaw has a length of 8.7 mm at the alveoli. The third molar is relatively narrow and both the second and third molars have a wide valley between their outer cusps.
The mammalian order Pilosa, which includes the sloths and anteaters, includes various species from the Caribbean region. Many species of sloths are known from the Greater Antilles, all of which became extinct over the last millennia, but some sloths and anteaters survive on islands closer to the mainland.
The Caribbean Netherlands are the three special municipalities of the Netherlands that are located in the Caribbean Sea. They consist of the islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, although the term "Caribbean Netherlands" is sometimes used to refer to all of the islands in the Dutch Caribbean. In legislation, the three islands are also known as the BES islands. The islands are currently classified as public bodies in the Netherlands and as overseas countries and territories of the European Union; thus, EU law does not automatically apply.
A common visa exists since the end of 2010 for the territories of Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and the Caribbean Netherlands which form together the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. The visa is not valid for the European part of the Netherlands, which is part of the Schengen Area.
Agathaeromys is an extinct genus of oryzomyine rodents from the Pleistocene of Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles. Two species are known, which differ in size and some details of tooth morphology. The larger A. donovani, the type species, is known from hundreds of teeth, found in four localities that are probably 900,000 to 540,000 years old. A. praeuniversitatis, the smaller species, is known from 35 teeth found in a single fossil site, which is probably 540,000 to 230,000 years old.
An island council was the governing body of an island territory, an administrative level of the Netherlands Antilles until its dissolution.
The Territory of Curaçao national football team was the official football team for the Territory of Curaçao, under the control of the Curaçaose Voetbal Bond.
