The fauna of Puerto Rico is similar to other island archipelago
fauna
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoo ...
s, with high
endemism
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
, and low, skewed
taxonomic diversity.
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most ...
s are the only
extant
Extant is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to:
* Extant hereditary titles
* Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English
* Extant taxon, a taxon which is not extinct, ...
native terrestrial mammals in
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
. All other terrestrial mammals in the area were introduced by humans, and include species such as cats,
goat
The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...
s,
sheep
Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...
, the
small Indian mongoose
The small Indian mongoose (''Urva auropunctata'') is a mongoose species native to Iraq and northern South Asia; it has also been introduced to many regions of the world, such as several Caribbean and Pacific islands.
Taxonomy
''Mangusta auropu ...
, and escaped
monkey
Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...
s.
Marine mammals include
dolphin
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...
s,
manatee
Manatees (family Trichechidae, genus ''Trichechus'') are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. There are three accepted living species of Trichechidae, representing three of the four living species ...
s, and
whale
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...
s. Of the 349
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
species, about 120 breed in the archipelago, and 47.5% are accidental or rare.
The most recognizable and famous animal of Puerto Rico is probably the
common coquí, a small endemic frog, and one of the 86 species that constitute
Puerto Rico's herpetofauna. Some native freshwater fish inhabit Puerto Rico, but some species, introduced by humans, have established populations in
reservoir
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation.
Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...
s and
river
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
s. The low richness-high diversity pattern is also apparent among
invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
s, which constitutes most of the archipelago's fauna.
The arrival of the first people about 4,000 years ago and, to a larger extent, of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
ans more than 500 years ago, had a significant effect on Puerto Rico's fauna.
Hunting
Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...
,
habitat destruction
Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...
, and the introduction of
non-native species to Puerto Rico led to
extinction
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
s and extirpations (local extinctions).
Conservation
Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws.
Conservation may also refer to:
Environment and natural resources
* Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...
efforts, the most notable being for the
Puerto Rican parrot
The Puerto Rican amazon (''Amazona vittata''), also known as the Puerto Rican parrot (Puerto Rican Spanish: ''cotorra puertorriqueña'') or ''iguaca'', is the only extant parrot endemic to the archipelago of Puerto Rico, and belongs to the Neo ...
, began in the second half of the 20th century. According to
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
, as of 2002, there were 21 threatened species in Puerto Rico: two mammals, eight breeding birds, eight
reptile
Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...
s, and three
amphibian
Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...
s.
Origin of Puerto Rican fauna
The
Caribbean Plate
The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America.
Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) in area, the Caribbean Plate borders ...
, an oceanic
tectonic plate
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large te ...
on which Puerto Rico and the
Antilles
The Antilles (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy; es, Antillas; french: Antilles; nl, Antillen; ht, Antiy; pap, Antias; Jamaican Patois: ''Antiliiz'') is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mex ...
(with the exception of
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
) lie, was formed in the late
Mesozoic
The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...
. According to Rosen, when
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
separated from
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, a volcanic archipelago known as "Proto-Antilles" was formed. It later divided into the present-day
Greater and
Lesser Antilles
The Lesser Antilles ( es, link=no, Antillas Menores; french: link=no, Petites Antilles; pap, Antias Menor; nl, Kleine Antillen) are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. Most of them are part of a long, partially volcanic island arc betwe ...
because of a new fault line in the "Proto-Antilles". Geologically, the archipelago of Puerto Rico is young, having formed about 135
Ma (million years) ago. The prevailing hypothesis, proposed by
Howard Meyerhoff, posits that the Puerto Rican Bank, consisting of Puerto Rico, its outlying islands, and the
Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands ( es, Islas Vírgenes) are an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. They are geologically and biogeographically the easternmost part of the Greater Antilles, the northern islands belonging to the Puerto Rico Trench and St. Croix ...
with the exception of
St. Croix
Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincor ...
, was formed from volcanism in the
Cretaceous Period
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of t ...
.
Rock samples from Sierra Bermeja in southwestern Puerto Rico, dated to the late Jurassic/early Cretaceous period, confirm this theory.
There is ongoing debate over when and how the ancestors of
vertebrate fauna colonized the Antilles—particularly whether the Proto-Antilles were oceanic islands or whether they once formed a land connection between South and
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
. The first, and prevailing, model favors overwater dispersal from continental, primarily South American, fauna; the other suggests the
vicarization of proto-Antillean fauna. Hedges et al. conclude that
dispersal was "the primary mechanism for the origin of West Indian biota". Vertebrate terrestrial genera such as ''
Eleutherodactylus
''Eleutherodactylus'' is a genus of frogs in the family Eleutherodactylidae.Hedges, S. B., W. E. Duellman, and M. P. Heinicke . 2008. New World direct-developing frogs (Anura: Terrarana): molecular phylogeny, classification, biogeography, and c ...
'' dispersed in a "filter" effect among the islands before any vicarization event occurred. However, other fauna such as the endemic Antillean insectivores (''
Nesophontes
''Nesophontes'', sometimes called West Indies shrews, is the sole genus of the extinct, monotypic mammal family Nesophontidae in the order Eulipotyphla. These animals were small insectivores, about 5 to 15 cm long, with a long slender snout ...
'' sp., ''
Solenodon marcanoi
Marcano's solenodon (''Solenodon marcanoi'') is an extinct species of mammal in the family Solenodontidae known only from skeletal remains found on the island of Hispaniola (today the Dominican Republic and Haiti).
Etymology
The specific ep ...
'' and others) and freshwater fish appear to have colonized the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
earlier through other means. Woods provides evidence to support this hypothesis by analyzing the arrival of ancestors of the Antillean
capromyids and
echimyids, concluding that an ancient echimyid must have arrived on the Greater Antilles from South America either by island-hopping through the Lesser Antilles or by rafting either to Puerto Rico or
Hispaniola
Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...
.
MacPhee and Iturralde provide an alternate hypothesis that the initiators of land mammal
clade
A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...
s arrived on the Proto-Antilles by the mid-
Tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago.
The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...
period, approximately at the
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene' ...
–
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...
boundary. A short-lived (~1 Ma) landmass named "GAARlandia" (Greater Antilles + Aves Ridge land) connected northwestern South America with three of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico) during this period. Afterwards, during the fragmentation of the Proto-Antilles, divergence of vacariated lines would have begun.
The last major changes in Puerto Rican fauna occurred about 10,000 years ago as a result of the post-
Ice Age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...
rise in sea level and associated environmental changes. Puerto Rico's transformation from a dry savanna environment to its present moist, forested state led to mass extinctions, especially of the vertebrate fauna.
Around this time, the Puerto Rican Bank—a single landmass comprising the archipelago of Puerto Rico (except for
Mona,
Monito and
Desecheo) and the Virgin Islands (except for St. Croix)—became separated.
The Puerto Rican Bank has never been connected to its closest eastern bank,
St. Maarten.
Mammals
The richness of
mammal
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
s in Puerto Rico, like many other islands, is low relative to mainland regions. The present-day native terrestrial mammal fauna of Puerto Rico is composed of only 13 species, all of which are bats. 18 marine mammals, including
manatee
Manatees (family Trichechidae, genus ''Trichechus'') are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. There are three accepted living species of Trichechidae, representing three of the four living species ...
s,
dolphin
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...
s and
whale
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...
s, occur in Puerto Rico.
Fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
records show the existence of one shrew (
Puerto Rican shrew
The Puerto Rican nesophontes (''Nesophontes edithae''), or Puerto Rican shrew, is an extinct eulipotyphlan endemic to Puerto Rico.
It is believed that the animal was never observed by Europeans. Contemporary fossils with indigenous artefacts a ...
, ''Nesophontes edithae''), one
sloth
Sloths are a group of Neotropical xenarthran mammals constituting the suborder Folivora, including the extant arboreal tree sloths and extinct terrestrial ground sloths. Noted for their slowness of movement, tree sloths spend most of their li ...
(Puerto Rican sloth), three additional
leaf-nosed bats
The New World leaf-nosed bats (Phyllostomidae) are found from southern North America to South America, specifically from the Southwest United States to northern Argentina. They are ecologically the most varied and diverse family within the order ...
(''
Macrotus waterhousii
Waterhouse's leaf-nosed bat (''Macrotus waterhousii'') is a species of big-eared bat in the family Phyllostomidae. It is found in the Cayman Islands, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, and Mexico, with a range from Sono ...
'', ''
Monophyllus plethodon'', and ''
Phyllonycteris major''), and five
rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...
s (one
giant hutia
Heptaxodontidae, rarely called giant hutia, is an extinct family of large rodents known from fossil and subfossil material found in the West Indies. One species, '' Amblyrhiza inundata'', is estimated to have weighed between , reaching the weigh ...
: ''
Elasmodontomys obliquus
The plate-toothed giant hutia (''Elasmodontomys obliquus'') is an extinct species of rodent in the family Heptaxodontidae. It is the only species within the genus ''Elasmodontomys''. It was found in Puerto Rico.
The rodent is thought to have w ...
'', one
hutia
Hutias (known in Spanish as jutía) are moderately large cavy-like rodents of the subfamily Capromyinae that inhabit the Caribbean islands, with most species restricted to Cuba and Hispaniola. Twenty species of hutia have been identified, but at ...
: ''
Isolobodon portoricensis
The Puerto Rican hutia (''Isolobodon portoricensis'') is an extinct species of rodent in the family Capromyidae. It was found on Hispaniola (today the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and Gonâve Island; it was introduced to the Virgin Islands ...
'' and three
spiny rats: ''
Heteropsomys antillensis'', ''
Heteropsomys insulans'', and ''
Puertoricomys corozalus''). Woods suggests a reason for their extinction: "Taxa evolving in isolation on oceanic islands without competition or predators may not be able to adapt to rapidly changing conditions, such as the extensive climatic fluctuations of the Ice Ages or sudden competition or predation from introduced animals".
Other terrestrial mammals have been introduced throughout the history of Puerto Rico. Indigenous settlers first introduced dogs and guinea pigs from South or Central America. Afterwards,
Taíno
The Taíno were a historic Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, indigenous people of the Caribbean whose culture has been continued today by Taíno descendant communities and Taíno revivalist communities. At the time of European contact in the ...
s introduced
hutia
Hutias (known in Spanish as jutía) are moderately large cavy-like rodents of the subfamily Capromyinae that inhabit the Caribbean islands, with most species restricted to Cuba and Hispaniola. Twenty species of hutia have been identified, but at ...
s as a food source from Hispaniola. When the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
colonized the island in the early 16th century, they introduced domesticated animals such as dogs, cats, goats, pigs,
cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...
, horses, and
donkey
The domestic donkey is a hoofed mammal in the family Equidae, the same family as the horse. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a ...
s.
Other species such as
black rat
The black rat (''Rattus rattus''), also known as the roof rat, ship rat, or house rat, is a common long-tailed rodent of the stereotypical rat genus ''Rattus'', in the subfamily Murinae. It likely originated in the Indian subcontinent, but is n ...
s (''Rattus rattus''),
Norway rat
The brown rat (''Rattus norvegicus''), also known as the common rat, street rat, sewer rat, wharf rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Norwegian rat and Parisian rat, is a widespread species of common rat. One of the largest muroids, it is a brown o ...
s (''Rattus norvegicus'') and house mice (''Mus'' sp.) have been unintentionally introduced as stowaways, possibly since
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
's arrival in 1493. More recently, species have been introduced as a means of
biological pest control
Biological control or biocontrol is a method of controlling pests, such as insects, mites, weeds, and plant diseases, using other organisms. It relies on predation, parasitism, herbivory, or other natural mechanisms, but typically also invo ...
. For example, the small Asian mongoose (''Herpestes javanicus'') was introduced in the 19th century to control the damage caused by rats in
sugar cane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks t ...
plantations. The introduction was a failure: the mongoose failed to control the rat population and instead contributed to the decline of native fauna such as the
yellow-shouldered blackbird
The yellow-shouldered blackbird (''Agelaius xanthomus''), known in Puerto Rican Spanish as ''mariquita de Puerto Rico'' or ''capitán'', is a species of blackbird endemic to Puerto Rico. It has black plumage with a prominent yellow patch on the ...
and possibly the
elfin-woods warbler.
As part of a study on
adaptation
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...
, 57
rhesus macaque
The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally b ...
s (''Macaca mulatta'') were introduced to the island of
Desecheo and other southern off-shore islands and cays in 1967.
[ Prior to the introduction, Desecheo was the largest nesting colony of the ]brown booby
The brown booby (''Sula leucogaster'') is a large seabird of the booby family Sulidae, of which it is perhaps the most common and widespread species. It has a pantropical range, which overlaps with that of other booby species. The gregarious brow ...
, but mainly as a result of egg predation
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the ...
by the introduced macaques, no bird species presently nests in the island. Efforts to trap and remove the species have been unsuccessful and it has expanded its range to southwestern Puerto Rico. Other primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...
s also have established populations in Puerto Rico. As a result of vandalism, 107 squirrel monkey
Squirrel monkeys are New World monkeys of the genus ''Saimiri''. ''Saimiri'' is the only genus in the subfamily Saimirinae. The name of the genus is of Tupi origin (''sai-mirím'' or ''çai-mbirín'', with ''sai'' meaning 'monkey' and ''mirím'' ...
s escaped from a research station at Sabana Seca in the late 1970s. The latest estimate for this population is 35 individuals.[
Arguably the best known of aquatic mammals occurring in Puerto Rican waters is the ]Antillean manatee
The West Indian manatee (''Trichechus manatus''), also known as the North American manatee, is a large, aquatic mammal native to warm coastal areas of the Caribbean, from the eastern US to northern Brazil. Living alone or in herds, it feeds on un ...
(''Trichechus manatus manatus'') which is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN. The archipelago's waters are one of the species' main breeding areas. Manatees gathered local media attention when a two-month manatee nicknamed Moisés was rescued and raised for 27 months by the Caribbean Stranding Network (CSN). Moisés was the first successful release of an orphaned, captive-raised manatee to the marine environment in the Caribbean. The animal became a Puerto Rican cultural, as well as scientific, icon when Tony Croatto
Tony may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Tony (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters
* Gregory Tony (born 1978), American law enforcement officer
* Motu Tony (born 1981), New Zealand international rugby leagu ...
wrote a song titled "Moisés". A municipality of Puerto Rico, Manatí is believed to be named after the species.
Puerto Rico's waters are also an important breeding site for the humpback whale
The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hump ...
during the Northern Hemisphere's winter. Humpback whale watching
Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and dolphins ( cetaceans) in their natural habitat. Whale watching is mostly a recreational activity (cf. birdwatching), but it can also serve scientific and/or educational purposes.Hoyt, E. 2 ...
is a popular tourist attraction in the municipality of Rincón in western Puerto Rico.
Bats
Extant
Extant is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to:
* Extant hereditary titles
* Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English
* Extant taxon, a taxon which is not extinct, ...
bats of Puerto Rico belong to five families ( Noctilionidae, Mormoopidae
The family Mormoopidae contains bats known generally as mustached bats, ghost-faced bats, and naked-backed bats. They are found in the Americas from the Southwestern United States to Southeastern Brazil.
They are distinguished by the presence ...
, Phyllostomidae, Vespertilionidae
Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat familie ...
, and Molossidae) and include a total of 13 species, of which six subspecies are endemic to the archipelago. Seven of the 13 species are insectivore
A robber fly eating a hoverfly
An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects.
The first vertebrate insectivores wer ...
s, four can be considered frugivore
A frugivore is an animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits or succulent fruit-like produce of plants such as roots, shoots, nuts and seeds. Approximately 20% of mammalian herbivores eat fruit. Frugivores are highly dependent on the abundance an ...
s, one species feeds on nectar and another on fish. The species total is a relatively low number in comparison to the other Greater Antilles. Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
, for example, with an area approximately 1.2 times that of Puerto Rico, has 21 species (1.6 times that of Puerto Rico). A possible explanation for this is the comparatively large distance between the archipelago and the mainland dispersion areas. Jamaica, for example, is closer to Cuba and Hispaniola which are themselves closer to the mainland dispersion areas of North and Central America.
Bats play an important role in forest and cave ecology in Puerto Rico and help control mosquito populations. Most species (10 of 13) are cave-dwellers with low reproductive rates; the area with the highest species richness is the Caribbean National Forest
El Yunque National Forest ( es, Bosque Nacional El Yunque), formerly known as the Caribbean National Forest (or ''Bosque Nacional del Caribe''), is a forest located in northeastern Puerto Rico. It is the only tropical rainforest in the United Sta ...
, where eleven species occur. The red fig-eating bat (red fruit bat), endemic to the Puerto Rican Bank, plays an important role in the ecology of tabonuco forest in the Luquillo Mountains since it is believed to be the only seed disperser of bulletwood (''Manilkara bidentata''). Cave ecosystems are enhanced by bat feces (guano
Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...
) since many of the invertebrate cave fauna are either guano scavengers, detritivore
Detritivores (also known as detrivores, detritophages, detritus feeders, or detritus eaters) are heterotrophs that obtain nutrients by consuming detritus (decomposing plant and animal parts as well as feces). There are many kinds of invertebrates, ...
s or predators of the former two.
The bat species that occur in the archipelago of Puerto Rico are: greater bulldog bat
The greater bulldog bat or fisherman bat (''Noctilio leporinus'') is a species of fishing bat native to Latin America (Spanish: ''murciélago pescador''; Portuguese: ''morcego-pescador''). The bat uses echolocation to detect water ripples made ...
(''Noctilio leporinus''), Antillean ghost-faced bat
The Antillean ghost-faced bat (''Mormoops blainvillei'') is a species of bat in the family Mormoopidae. It is found in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico.
Description
These bats range in color from a pale cinnamon to ...
(''Mormoops blainvillii''), Parnell's mustached bat
Parnell's mustached bat (''Pteronotus parnellii'') is an insectivorous bat native to the Americas. It ranges from southern Sonora, Mexico, south to Brazil. It has a wider historical range; fossil specimens have been collected on the island of Ne ...
(''Pteronotus parnellii''), sooty mustached bat (''Pteronotus quadridens''), Jamaican fruit bat
The Jamaican, common or Mexican fruit bat (''Artibeus jamaicensis'') is a fruit-eating bat native to Mexico, through Central America to northwestern South America, as well as the Greater and many of the Lesser Antilles. It is also an uncommon re ...
(''Artibeus jamaicensis''), Antillean fruit bat (''Brachyphylla cavernarum''), buffy flower bat
The buffy flower bat (''Erophylla sezekorni'') is a species of bat in the leaf-nosed bat family, Phyllostomidae. It is found in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Cuba, and Jamaica.
Description
The buffy flower bat is considered a medium-sized ...
(''Erophylla sezekorni bombifrons''), Leach's single leaf bat (''Monophyllus redmani''), red fruit bat
The red fruit bat or red fig-eating bat (''Stenoderma rufum'') is a species of bat in the family Phyllostomidae, in the monotypic genus ''Stenoderma''.Gannon, M.R., Rodríguez-Durán, M., Kurta, A., and Willig, M.R. Stenoderma rufum Desmarest, R ...
(''Stenoderma rufum''), big brown bat
The big brown bat (''Eptesicus fuscus'') is a species of vesper bat distributed widely throughout North America, the Caribbean, and the northern portion of South America. It was first described as a species in 1796. Compared to other microbat ...
(''Eptesicus fuscus''), eastern red bat
The eastern red bat (''Lasiurus borealis'') is a species of microbat in the family Vespertilionidae. Eastern red bats are widespread across eastern North America, with additional records in Bermuda.
Taxonomy and etymology
It was described in 1 ...
(''Lasiurus borealis''), velvety free-tailed bat
The velvety free-tailed bat or Pallas's mastiff bat (''Molossus molossus''), is a bat species in the family Molossidae.
Description
''M. molossus'' is a medium-sized bat, with a length of and with a wingspan of . This species is brown in color ...
(''Molossus molossus''), and Mexican free-tailed bat
The Mexican free-tailed bat or Brazilian free-tailed bat (''Tadarida brasiliensis'') is a medium-sized bat native to the Americas, so named because its tail can be almost half its total length and is not attached to its uropatagium. It has been ...
(''Tadarida brasiliensis'').
Birds
The avifauna of Puerto Rico is composed of 349 species, 18 of which are endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to the archipelago. Almost half of the species (166) are accidental, meaning that they have been sighted only once or twice, and 42 of the species have been introduced, either directly or indirectly (mainly through habitat alteration), by humans. Approximately 120 species, including both native and introduced, breed regularly in the archipelago.
The avifauna of the West Indies is predominantly of tropical North American (southern North America and Central America) origin with aggressive South American species having colonized the area only recently. The South American families occurring in the Greater Antilles are the hummingbird
Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics aro ...
s (Trochilidae), tyrant flycatcher
The tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae) are a family of passerine birds which occur throughout North and South America. They are considered the largest family of birds known to exist in the world, with more than 400 species. They are the most dive ...
s (Tyrannidae), bananaquit (Coerebidae) and tanager
The tanagers (singular ) comprise the bird family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has a Neotropical distribution and is the second-largest family of birds. It represents about 4% of all avian species and 12% of the Neotropica ...
s (Thraupidae), all of which are represented in Puerto Rico. The prevailing theory suggests that bird fauna colonized the West Indies by transoceanic dispersal during the glacial periods of the Pleistocene. The most primitive West Indies birds are the todies
The todies are a family, Todidae, of tiny Caribbean birds in the order Coraciiformes, which also includes the kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers. The family has one living genus, '' Todus'', and one genus known from the fossil record, '' Palaeot ...
which have an endemic representative in Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican tody
The Puerto Rican tody (''Todus mexicanus'') is a bird endemic to Puerto Rico. It is locally known in Spanish as "San Pedrito" ("little Saint Peter") and "medio peso" ("half-dollar bird").
Taxonomy
Todies are the closest relative to the motmots ...
.[
Puerto Rico's avifauna has diminished due to extinction and extirpation, either by natural forces or human intervention. For example, fossil evidence was discovered for a species of ]swift
Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to:
* SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks
** SWIFT code
* Swift (programming language)
* Swift (bird), a family of birds
It may also refer to:
Organizations
* SWIFT, ...
, ''Tachornis uranoceles'', dated to the late Pleistocene (between 17,000 and 21,000 years ago). The species is believed to have become extinct as a result of habitat alteration after the Wisconsin glaciation
The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsin glaciation, was the most recent glacial period of the North American ice sheet complex. This advance included the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which nucleated in the northern North American Cor ...
.[ At least six endemic species have become extinct in the last millennia: ]Puerto Rican barn owl
The Puerto Rican barn owl (''Tyto cavatica'') is an extinct species of barn owl that inhabited the island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. It is sometimes considered to be a subspecies of the ashy-faced owl (''Tyto glaucops'').
References
...
(''Tyto cavatica''), Puerto Rican caracara (''Polyborus latebrosus''), Puerto Rican conure
The Puerto Rican parakeet or Puerto Rican conure (''Psittacara maugei'') is an extinct species of parrot that was found on Mona Island and possibly in Puerto Rico.
Description
The bird was similar to the Hispaniolan parakeet (''Psittacara chl ...
(''Aratinga chloroptera maugei''), Puerto Rican woodcock (''Scolopax anthonyi''), Puerto Rican quail-dove
The Puerto Rican quail-dove (''Geotrygon larva'') is an extinct species of dove from the genus of quail-doves ''Geotrygon''. It is only known by subfossil material from the Holocene.
Remains of the Puerto Rican quail-dove were unearthed in the ...
(''Geotrygon larva''), and the Antillean cave rail (''Nesotrochis debooyi''). With a population of 13 individuals in 1975, the Puerto Rican parrot
The Puerto Rican amazon (''Amazona vittata''), also known as the Puerto Rican parrot (Puerto Rican Spanish: ''cotorra puertorriqueña'') or ''iguaca'', is the only extant parrot endemic to the archipelago of Puerto Rico, and belongs to the Neo ...
almost became the seventh, but conservation efforts helped save the species from extinction. However, it is still one of the ten most critically endangered birds in the world. Four Puerto Rican birds, the Hispaniolan parakeet
The Hispaniolan parakeet (''Psittacara chloropterus'') (Spanish: ''perico'' or ''periquito''), colloquially known as xaxabí, is a species of parrot in the family Psittacidae that is endemic to the island of Hispaniola (split between the Dominica ...
, the white-necked crow
The white-necked crow (''Corvus leucognaphalus'') is the largest of the four Caribbean corvids. It is endemic to the island of Hispaniola (split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic); it was formerly also extant on Puerto Rico, but has been ...
, the Cuban crow
The Cuban crow (''Corvus nasicus'') is one of four species of crow that occur on islands in the Caribbean. It is closely related to the white-necked crow (''C. leucognaphalus'') and Jamaican crow (''C. jamaicensis''), with which it shares simil ...
, and the limpkin
The limpkin (''Aramus guarauna''), also called carrao, courlan, and crying bird, is a large wading bird related to rails and cranes, and the only extant species in the family Aramidae. It is found mostly in wetlands in warm parts of the America ...
, became extirpated after Puerto Rico's population expansion in the latter half of the nineteenth century and three more species, the black-bellied whistling duck
The black-bellied whistling duck (''Dendrocygna autumnalis''), formerly called the black-bellied tree duck, is a whistling duck that breeds from the southernmost United States, Mexico, and tropical Central to south-central South America. In th ...
, the black rail, and the American flamingo
The American flamingo (''Phoenicopterus ruber'') is a large species of flamingo closely related to the greater flamingo and Chilean flamingo native to the Neotropics. It was formerly considered conspecific with the greater flamingo, but that tre ...
, no longer breed in the archipelago.
Amphibians and reptiles
Puerto Rico's herpetofauna consists of 25 amphibian
Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...
species and 61 reptile
Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...
species. The majority of West Indian terrestrial reptile clade is believed to have arrived by flotsam dispersion from South America. Little evidence exists to support the alternative hypothesis of proto-Antillean vicariance. Other terrestrial herpetofauna are believed to have arrived to the West Indies (and Puerto Rico) by the same method and subsequently undergone vicarization by banks or islands. As a result, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean in general, has one of the highest percentages of endemism among amphibians and reptiles in the world. Amphibian species in Puerto Rico belong to four families: Bufonidae {{Cat main, Toad
This category contains both species commonly called toads, and the true toads from the family Bufonidae {{Cat main, Toad
This category
Category, plural categories, may refer to:
Philosophy and general uses
*Categorization, cat ...
(2 species), Hylidae
Hylidae is a wide-ranging family of frogs commonly referred to as "tree frogs and their allies". However, the hylids include a diversity of frog species, many of which do not live in trees, but are terrestrial or semiaquatic.
Taxonomy and s ...
(3), Leptodactylidae
The southern frogs form the Leptodactylidae, a name that comes from Greek meaning a bird or other animal having slender toes. They are a diverse family of frogs that most likely diverged from other hyloids during the Cretaceous. The family has u ...
(18) and Ranidae (2). Reptiles include turtle
Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...
s (freshwater and marine), lizard
Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...
s, worm lizard
Amphisbaenia (called amphisbaenians or worm lizards) is a group of usually legless squamates, comprising over 200 extant species. Amphisbaenians are characterized by their long bodies, the reduction or loss of the limbs, and rudimentary eyes. As ...
s, snake
Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Ma ...
s and a caiman
A caiman (also cayman as a variant spelling) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans inhabit Mexico, Central and South America fro ...
.
All species of Ranidae and Hylidae occurring in Puerto Rico are introduced. One species from the family Bufonidae, the cane toad
The cane toad (''Rhinella marina''), also known as the giant neotropical toad or marine toad, is a large, terrestrial true toad native to South and mainland Central America, but which has been introduced to various islands throughout Oceania ...
, is introduced while the other, the Puerto Rican crested toad
The Puerto Rican crested toad (''Peltophryne lemur''), or simply Puerto Rican toad, is a species of toad found only in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. It is the only species of toad native to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The species fo ...
, is endemic and critically endangered. The cane toad was introduced to Puerto Rico in the 1920s to control the populations of white-grub (''Phyllophaga'' spp.), a sugar cane pest. All species from the family Leptodactylidae are native to the region. Of the 18 Leptodactylidae species, 17 are from the genus ''Eleutherodactylus
''Eleutherodactylus'' is a genus of frogs in the family Eleutherodactylidae.Hedges, S. B., W. E. Duellman, and M. P. Heinicke . 2008. New World direct-developing frogs (Anura: Terrarana): molecular phylogeny, classification, biogeography, and c ...
'' and are commonly known in Puerto Rico as coquís. Three of these, the web-footed coquí
The web-footed coqui, stream coqui, Puerto Rican stream frog or Karl's robber frog (''Eleutherodactylus karlschmidti''), is a possibly extinct Puerto Rican frog species in the family Eleutherodactylidae. It was first described by Chapman Grant ...
, the golden coqui
Golden means made of, or relating to gold.
Golden may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
*Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall
* Golden Cap, Dorset
*Golden Square, Soho, London
*Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome in Gloucestershi ...
and the mottled coqui
Mottle is a pattern of irregular marks, spots, streaks, blotches or patches of different shades or colours. It is commonly used to describe the surface of plants or the skin of animals. In plants, mottling usually consists of yellowish spots ...
, are likely to be extinct. The golden coqui is the only live-bearing species from the family Leptodactylidae and Cook's robber frog (''E. cooki'') is the only ''Eleutherodactylus'' sp. that exhibits sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most ani ...
in both size and color. The common coquí (''Eleutherodactylus coqui'') is an unofficial national symbol of Puerto Rico and an important aspect of Puerto Rican culture
The culture of Puerto Rico is the result of a number of international and indigenous influences, both past and present. Modern cultural manifestations showcase the island's rich history and help to create an identity which is uniquely Puerto Rica ...
. Since 14 of the 17 coquís are endemic to the archipelago, a common phrase used by Puerto Ricans to assert their national pride is "''De aquí como el coquí''" (From here Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
like the coquí).
Puerto Rico's turtle fauna includes both freshwater (5 species, including two extinct species) and marine turtles (5). Two of these species, the hawksbill turtle
The hawksbill sea turtle (''Eretmochelys imbricata'') is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Eretmochelys''. The species has a global distribution, that is large ...
and the leatherback sea turtle
The leatherback sea turtle (''Dermochelys coriacea''), sometimes called the lute turtle or leathery turtle or simply the luth, is the largest of all living turtles and the heaviest non-crocodilian reptile, reaching lengths of up to and weight ...
, are critically endangered. Threats to these species include habitat destruction and illegal capture of eggs and individuals. The spectacled caiman, an introduced species, is the only representative of the order Crocodilia in Puerto Rico.
The 11 snake species occurring in Puerto Rico are generally considered non-venomous, although research has concluded that at least one species, the Puerto Rican racer ('' Alsophis portoricensis''), secretes venom. These species belong to 3 families and 4 genera: Typhlopidae (genus ''Typhlops
''Typhlops'' is a genus of blind snakes in the family Typhlopidae. The genus is endemic to the West Indies. Some species which were formerly placed in the genus ''Typhlops'' have been moved to the genera ''Afrotyphlops, Amerotyphlops, Anilios, ...
''), Boidae ('' Epicrates'') and Colubridae ('' Alsophis'' and ''Arrhyton
''Arrhyton'' is a genus of New World snakes, commonly known as island racers or racerlets, in the family Colubridae. The genus contains 9 described species.
Geographic range
All species in the genus ''Arrhyton'' are endemic to Cuba.
Species
T ...
''). The largest snake in Puerto Rico is the endemic Puerto Rican boa (''Epicrates inornatus'') with a maximum length of 12 ft (3.7 m). The diet of snakes in Puerto Rico consists of reptiles (''Ameiva'', ''Anolis'', geckos), ''coquís'' and other frogs, and, to a lesser extent, mice, birds and bats (exclusively by the Puerto Rican Boa).
The largest terrestrial lizard of the archipelago of Puerto Rico is the Mona ground iguana
The Mona ground iguana (''Cyclura stejnegeri'') is a rock iguana that is endemic to Mona Island, Puerto Rico, and is the largest native terrestrial lizard in Puerto Rico. It was previously considered a subspecies of the rhinoceros iguana (''C ...
(''Cyclura cornuta stejnegeri''). A subspecies of the rhinoceros iguana
The rhinoceros iguana (''Cyclura cornuta'') is an endangered species of iguana that is endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and its surrounding islands. A large lizard, they vary in length fro ...
(''Cyclura cornuta''), it is endemic to Mona Island, located in the Mona Passage
The Mona Passage ( es, Canal de la Mona) is a strait that separates the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. The Mona Passage connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and is an important shipping route between the Atlantic and the Panama ...
between the main island of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...
. Another ''Cyclura'' species of similar size, the Anegada ground iguana (''Cyclura pinguis
''Cyclura pinguis'', the Anegada rock iguana, Anegada ground iguana or stout iguana, ''), once occurred in the archipelago but it became extirpated due to predation by dogs, cats, and humans, habitat destruction, and competition from goats and pigs, and is now restricted to Anegada
Anegada is the northernmost of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), a group of islands that form part of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. It lies approximately north of Virgin Gorda. Anegada is the only inhabited British Virgin Island for ...
. The most common lizard in Puerto Rico is the sharp-mouthed lizard
''Anolis pulchellus'', the Puerto Rican bush anole, snake anole, or Puerto Rican anole, is a small anole lizard of the family Dactyloidae. The species is among the most common lizards in Puerto Rico, and also native to Vieques, Culebra, and the ...
(''Anolis pulchellus''). The anole lizards of Puerto Rico, and the Greater Antilles in general, represent an interesting case of adaptive radiation
In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is a process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, alters biotic int ...
. Anole lizards in the Greater Antilles are more closely related to other species within the same island than to species of adjacent islands. Surprisingly, even though species divergence occurred independently on each island, the same set of ecomorphs (habitat specialists) have evolved on each island.
Fish
The first fish descriptions from Puerto Rico were compiled by Cuvier and Valenciennes
Valenciennes (, also , , ; nl, label=also Dutch, Valencijn; pcd, Valincyinnes or ; la, Valentianae) is a commune in the Nord department, Hauts-de-France, France.
It lies on the Scheldt () river. Although the city and region experienced a s ...
in 1828. They reported 33 taxa for the archipelago. Puerto Rico has few native freshwater fish species; however, there are over 30 introduced species, mainly originating from Africa, South America and the southeastern United States, have established populations, and 60 marine species use Puerto Rico's freshwater bodies intermittently during the year.[ Introductions have been intentional and accidental. The purposes of intentional introductions have been ]sport fishing
Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishing ...
for recreation and food, mosquito control, and to provide baitfish
300px, Feeder Goldfish are common baitfish.
Bait fish (or baitfish) are small-sized fish caught and used by anglers as bait to attract larger predatory fish, particularly game fish. Baitfish species are typically those that are common and b ...
for largemouth bass
The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, but ...
. Accidental introductions, such as the sailfin armored catfish (''Pterygoplichthys multiradiatus
''Pterygoplichthys multiradiatus'' is one of several tropical fish commonly known as Orinoco sailfin catfish, plecostomus (or plecos). It belongs to the armored catfish family (Loricariidae). Named for its sail-like dorsal fin, the part of its sc ...
''), are mainly attributed to the release of aquarium fish. Since 1936, the Puerto Rican Department of Natural and Environmental Resources runs a hatchery
A hatchery is a facility where eggs are hatched under artificial conditions, especially those of fish, poultry or even turtles. It may be used for ex-situ conservation purposes, i.e. to breed rare or endangered species under controlled cond ...
at the municipality of Maricao
Maricao () is a town and the second-least populous municipality of Puerto Rico; it is located at the western edge of the Cordillera Central. It is a small town set around a small square in hilly terrain, north of San Germán, Sabana Grande and ...
. About 25,000 fish, including largemouth bass, peacock bass, and channel catfish
The channel catfish (''Ictalurus punctatus'') is North America's most numerous catfish species. It is the official fish of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Tennessee, and is informally referred to as a "channel cat". In the United States, the ...
, and some turtle species are raised annually to stock Puerto Rico's reservoirs and rivers.
Three types of habitats, mangrove
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...
s, reef
A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock out ...
s and seagrass
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the orde ...
es, are found in Puerto Rico's ocean waters. A total of 677 fish species live in these habitats; 242 being reef species.[Wilkinson, p. 438] Fish species found in Puerto Rican reefs are representative of the general Caribbean fauna. Common reef fishes include wrasse
The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 81 genera, which are divided into 9 subgroups or tribes.
They are typically small, most of them le ...
s, damselfishes, white grunts (''Haemulon plumieri''), bluestriped grunts (''Haemulon sciurus''), queen parrotfish (''Scarus vetula''), and shark
Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimo ...
s (family Carcharhinidae). Sea breams (''Archosargus rhomboidalis'') and yellowfin mojarras (''Gerres cinereus'') are some of the species commonly found in mangrove habitats.[ Other species of interest include ]flatfish
A flatfish is a member of the Ray-finned fish, ray-finned demersal fish order (biology), order Pleuronectiformes, also called the Heterosomata, sometimes classified as a suborder of Perciformes. In many species, both eyes lie on one side of the ...
es, with 21 recorded species, and sharks, with more than 20 species. Oceanic whitetip shark
The oceanic whitetip shark (''Carcharhinus longimanus''), also known as shipwreck shark, Brown Milbert's sand bar shark, brown shark, lesser white shark, nigano shark, oceanic white-tipped whaler, and silvertip shark, is a large pelagic requiem ...
s and silky shark
The silky shark (''Carcharhinus falciformis''), also known by numerous names such as blackspot shark, gray whaler shark, olive shark, ridgeback shark, sickle shark, sickle-shaped shark and sickle silk shark, is a species of requiem shark, in the ...
s are common in the Mona Passage.
Invertebrates
The invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
fauna of Puerto Rico is high in richness but low in diversity relative to mainland neotropical
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone.
Definition
In bioge ...
faunas of similar size and habitat diversity. Puerto Rico, in comparison to other Antillean islands, is the most extensively studied in regards to invertebrates.
Puerto Rico's insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...
fauna, similar to the majority of major invertebrate taxa
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...
in the archipelago, is considered depauperate
A depauperate ecosystem is an ecosystem which is lacking in numbers or variety of species, often because it lacks enough stored chemical elements and resources required for life. Thus, depauperate ecosystems often cannot support rapid growth of f ...
when compared to its mainland counterparts.[Reagan and Waide, pp. 190–192] For example, approximately 300 species of butterfly
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...
occur in Puerto Rico, in contrast to more than 600 species in Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...
and more than 1,500 species documented from a 7.5 km2 region in Brazil. As of 1998, out of the estimated 925,000 described insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...
species, only 5,573 were documented from Puerto Rico. In terms of diversity, of the 31 extant insect orders, 27 have representatives in Puerto Rico. The orders without reported representatives are Microcoryphia
The Archaeognatha are an order of apterygotes, known by various common names such as jumping bristletails. Among extant insect taxa they are some of the most evolutionarily primitive; they appeared in the Middle Devonian period at about the ...
, Grylloblattaria, Plecoptera, and Mecoptera
Mecoptera (from the Greek: ''mecos'' = "long", ''ptera'' = "wings") is an order of insects in the superorder Endopterygota with about six hundred species in nine families worldwide. Mecopterans are sometimes called scorpionflies after their lar ...
. The largest insect depository in Puerto Rico resides at the ''Museo de Entomología y Biodiversidad Tropical'' (Museum of Entomology and Tropical Biodiversity), part of the Agricultural Experimental Station of the University of Puerto Rico
The University of Puerto Rico ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, UPR) is the main public university system in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a government-owned corporation with 11 campuses and approximately 58,000 students and 5,3 ...
.
Arachnid
Arachnida () is a class of joint-legged invertebrate animals (arthropods), in the subphylum Chelicerata. Arachnida includes, among others, spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, camel spiders, whip spiders and vinegaroon ...
s are important to the forest ecology
Forest ecology is the scientific study of the interrelated patterns, processes, flora, fauna and ecosystems in forests. The management of forests is known as forestry, silviculture, and forest management. A forest ecosystem is a natural woodland ...
, as both predators and prey. In some forest types, such as tabonuco forest, they are the major arboreal invertebrate predators; spiders being the most abundant representative. The Maricao Commonwealth Forest's 27 spider species belong to five families: Uloboridae
Uloboridae is a family of non-venomous spiders, known as cribellate orb weavers or hackled orb weavers. Their lack of venom glands is a secondarily evolved trait. Instead, they wrap their prey thoroughly in silk, cover it in regurgitated digestive ...
, Pholcidae
The Pholcidae are a family of araneomorph spiders. The family contains over 1,800 individual species of pholcids, including those commonly known as cellar spider, daddy long-legs spider, carpenter spider, daddy long-legger, vibrating spid ...
, Theridiidae
Theridiidae, also known as the tangle-web spiders, cobweb spiders and comb-footed spiders, is a large family of Araneomorphae, araneomorph spiders first described by Carl Jakob Sundevall in 1833. This diverse, globally distributed family includes ...
, Linyphiidae
Linyphiidae, spiders commonly known as sheet weavers (from the shape of their webs), or money spiders (in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and in Portugal, from the superstition that if such a spider is seen running on you, ...
and Araneidae
Orb-weaver spiders are members of the spider family Araneidae. They are the most common group of builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields, and forests. The English word "orb" can mean "circular", hence the English name ...
. ''Theotima minutissima
''Theotima minutissima'' is a minute (0.9mm) spider.
Distribution
With a pantropical distribution''T. minutissima'' occurs in Panama, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Guam. It is especially abundant in the tropical forest leaf litter on ...
'', a small spider species found in abundance in the Caribbean National Forest, is believed to be parthenogenetic
Parthenogenesis (; from the Greek grc, παρθένος, translit=parthénos, lit=virgin, label=none + grc, γένεσις, translit=génesis, lit=creation, label=none) is a natural form of asexual reproduction in which growth and development ...
, meaning that it reproduces without fertilization by a male.
Other terrestrial invertebrates described from Puerto Rico include earthworm
An earthworm is a terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. They exhibit a tube-within-a-tube body plan; they are externally segmented with corresponding internal segmentation; and they usually have setae on all segments. Th ...
s and cave dwelling animals. Eighteen native species of earthworm have been described, with 11 species belonging to the family Glossoscolecidae
The Glossoscolecidae are a large family of earthworms (annelids) which has native representatives in South and Central America. The species '' Pontoscolex corethrurus'' has a circumtropical distribution.
They are found mostly in forest, but one ...
, 3 to the family Megascolecidae
The Megascolecidae is a taxonomic family of earthworms which is native to Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand and both South East Asia and North America. All species of Megascolecidae belong to the Clitellata class. Megascolecidae are a large fami ...
, and 4 to the family Exxidae. Seventy-eight invertebrate species are known to inhabit Puerto Rico's caves. Six of these species are restricted to the Antilles, 23 come from North America and 23 are endemic to Puerto Rico. Only two of the species are confirmed as troglobite
A troglobite (or, formally, troglobiont) is an animal species, or population of a species, strictly bound to underground habitats, such as caves. These are separate from species that mainly live in above-ground habitats but are also able to live u ...
s, or restricted to caves. Forty-five percent of the species are predators while the remaining 55% are guano scavengers, detritivores and herbivore
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...
s. It is believed that most of this fauna arrived at Puerto Rico in the Pleistocene.
The marine invertebrate fauna of Puerto Rico is composed of 61 sponges
Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through ...
, 171 cnidarians, 8 nemertean
Nemertea is a phylum of animals also known as ribbon worms or proboscis worms, consisting of 1300 known species. Most ribbon worms are very slim, usually only a few millimeters wide, although a few have relatively short but wide bodies. Many h ...
s, 1,176 mollusk
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...
s, 129 annelid
The annelids (Annelida , from Latin ', "little ring"), also known as the segmented worms, are a large phylum, with over 22,000 extant species including ragworms, earthworms, and leeches. The species exist in and have adapted to various ecol ...
s (polychaetes), 342 crustacean
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...
s, 165 echinoderm
An echinoderm () is any member of the phylum Echinodermata (). The adults are recognisable by their (usually five-point) radial symmetry, and include starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers, as well as the sea ...
s, 131 bryozoans, 117 hard coral
Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mo ...
s, 99 soft coral
Alcyonacea, or soft corals, are an order of corals. In addition to the fleshy soft corals, the order Alcyonacea now contains all species previously known as "gorgonian corals", that produce a more or less hard skeleton, though quite different f ...
s and gorgonians, 13 corallimorphs, and 8 hydrocoral
Anthoathecata, or the athecate hydroids, are an order of hydrozoans belonging to the phylum Cnidaria. A profusion of alternate scientific names exists for this long-known, heavily discussed, and spectacular group. It has also been called Gymnobla ...
s. Coral species found in Puerto Rican reefs are representative of the general Caribbean fauna. Commonly occurring corals include boulder star coral (''Montrastaea annularis''), finger coral (''Porites porites''), and elkhorn coral
Elkhorn coral (''Acropora palmata'') is an important reef-building coral in the Caribbean. The species has a complex structure with many branches which resemble that of elk antlers; hence, the common name. The branching structure creates habita ...
(''Acropora palmata'').
Invertebrate introductions have had an observable effect on Puerto Rican fauna. Native freshwater snails such as '' Physa cubensis'' have been adversely affected by introduced species. Currently, the most abundant freshwater snail in Puerto Rico is the Quilted Melania (''Tarebia granifera
''Tarebia granifera'', common name (in the aquarium industry) the quilted melania, is a species of freshwater snail with an operculum, an aquatic gastropod mollusk in the family Thiaridae. MolluscaBase eds. (2020). MolluscaBase. Tarebia gr ...
''), an introduced species. Another invertebrate introduced to Puerto Rico is the honeybee
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmo ...
. This animal competes with the endangered Puerto Rican parrot for secondary nesting cavities at the Caribbean National Forest. Africanized bees, which pose an even greater threat for secondary cavity nesters, have recently extended their range to Puerto Rico. Other introductions include 18 species of ant
Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of 22 ...
, one of the most abundant taxa in leaf litter
Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that have fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituent ...
habitats.
Human effect and conservation
The fauna of Puerto Rico has been subjected to human influence since the arrival of the Ortoiroid
The Ortoiroid people were the second wave of human settlers of the Caribbean who began their migration into the Antilles around 2000 BCE. They were preceded by the Casimiroid peoples (~4190-2165 BCE). They are believed to have originated in the ...
, Puerto Rico's first settler
A settler is a person who has human migration, migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area.
A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a ...
s, approximately 4,000 years ago. The native fauna was used by the island's indigenous population as a source of food, while others were used for skins and trade. Significant declines in the populations and diversity of the islands fauna are believed to have begun after the arrival of European settlers in the sixteenth century. Habitat destruction, primarily as a result of forest clearing for sugar cane plantations, had a devastating effect on Puerto Rican fauna during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, human-introduced species such as rats, cats, the small Asian mongoose, and the cane toad have had a profound effect on the native fauna of Puerto Rico. Rats on Monito Island are believed to be a limiting factor on the abundance of the endemic Monito gecko
The Monito gecko (''Sphaerodactylus micropithecus'') is a lizard, a species of gecko endemism, endemic to the Monito Island, island of Monito, in the archipelago of Puerto Rico.
Habitat & distribution
The Monito gecko is restricted to two locat ...
, feral cats on Mona Island have been documented attacking common ground dove
The common ground dove (''Columbina passerina'') is a small bird that inhabits the southern United States, parts of Central America, the Caribbean and northern South America. It is considered to be the smallest dove that inhabits the United State ...
s and endemic reptiles, and have been associated with the reduction of Mona ground iguana juveniles, and mongooses have been documented preying on Puerto Rican parrot fledglings.
Conservation efforts include both land and species protection. Approximately 8.95 km2 (equal to 3.4% of total land area) divided among 34 reserves are protected in Puerto Rico.[ According to the IUCN there are 21 threatened species in Puerto Rico: 2 mammals, 8 breeding birds, 8 reptiles, and 3 amphibians. The U.S. federal government lists 5 mammals, 2 amphibians, 8 birds, and 10 reptiles under the Federal ]Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...
. The Puerto Rican government, through the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER), produces its own threatened species list which includes 18 critically endangered species (3 amphibians, 7 birds, 3 reptiles, 2 fish and 3 invertebrates), and 14 endangered species. The DNER follows the IUCN classification scheme for species' priority assignment.
Birds currently receive the greatest attention in regards to conservation. Arguably the most successful fauna recovery plan in Puerto Rico was the Puerto Rican Parrot Recovery Plan. Initiated in 1968, its main objective was to downlist the Puerto Rican parrot's status from critical to threatened by 2020. Other objectives include the establishment of two separate, effective, wild populations (500 or more individuals for 5 years), the protection of habitat for those populations and the control of predators, parasites and competitors of the species. Currently, the total wild parrot population is estimated at 44 individuals, and 105 birds are in captivity. This program was fundamental in raising ecological awareness in Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rico Breeding Bird Survey (PRBBS), established in 1997, is a program with the purpose of monitoring the status and trends of Puerto Rican breeding bird populations. The information gathered by these surveys is used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...
(USFWS) to assess bird conservation priorities. Other conservation programs by the USFWS include the Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Migratory Bird Conservation and the maintenance of 5 wildlife refuges at Cabo Rojo, Laguna Cartagena, Vieques
Vieques (; ), officially Isla de Vieques, is an island and municipality of Puerto Rico, in the northeastern Caribbean, part of an island grouping sometimes known as the Spanish Virgin Islands. Vieques is part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, ...
, Culebra and Desecheo. Other institutions supporting bird conservation in Puerto Rico are the Puerto Rican Ornithological Society and the Puerto Rico National History Association.
Marine conservation
Marine conservation, also known as ocean conservation, is the protection and preservation of ecosystems in oceans and seas through planned management in order to prevent the over-exploitation of these marine resources. Marine conservation is in ...
has recently garnered support in Puerto Rico. The archipelago has an estimated 700 miles (1,126.5 km) of coastline and 1,300 mi2 (3,370 km2) of coral reef communities.[Wilkinson, p. 435.] The Department of Natural Resources of Puerto Rico maintains 25 areas with marine components but only two of these (11 km2) are designated as no-take zones. All turtle species occurring in Puerto Rico's waters are classified as either endangered or threatened. Earthwatch-supported turtle conservation programs and U.S. federal programs have raised local awareness and have contributed to the decline of egg-poaching and turtle meat consumption.
See also
* List of endemic fauna of Puerto Rico
This is a list of the endemic fauna of Puerto Rico. This list is sorted in alphabetical order by the scientific name of the species, which are in parentheses.
Birds
* Yellow-shouldered blackbird (''Agelaius xanthomus'')
* Puerto Rican parro ...
* List of Vieques birds
This is a list of birds recorded in the island of Vieques. Vieques is an island municipality of Puerto Rico located off the east coast of the main island of Puerto Rico, south of Culebra island and west of the Virgin Islands. It has a total ar ...
References
Bibliography
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External links
Department of Natural Resources of Puerto Rico
Endangered Species in Puerto Rico - Sea Grant Manual(In Spanish)
{{North America in topic, Fauna of