The Leeward Island racer (''Alsophis rijgersmaei'') is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

snake Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Colubridae. The species is found in

Anguilla Anguilla ( ) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The terr ...

Saint Barthélemy Saint Barthélemy (french: Saint-Barthélemy, ), officially the Collectivité territoriale de Saint-Barthélemy, is an overseas collectivity of France in the Caribbean. It is often abbreviated to St. Barth in French, and St. Barts in English ...

, and is probably

extirpated Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...

from

Sint Maarten Sint Maarten () is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. With a population of 41,486 as of January 2019 on an area of , it encompasses the southern 44% of the divided island of Saint Martin, while the nort ...

Taxonomy

It was named by Edward Drinker Cope in 1869, the specific name honouring the Dutch government physician in St. Maarten, Hendrik Elingsz van Rijgersma, who was an avid amateur naturalist.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("''Alsophis rijgersmai'' ic, p. 222).

Conservation

It was thought to have been eradicated by the mongoose (Westerman, 1955; Sajdak and Henderson, 1991 in Powell et al., 1992). However, in 1992 there was a report of five specimens that were captured at Mary's Fancy, and in the same year one was observed in the field (Powell et al., 1992). A snake was also seen after the hurricane in January 1996 during a field trip at Flagstaf (Ecovision/AIDEnvironment, 1996). Snakes of the genus ''Alsophis'' and ''Liophis'' prove to be more sensitive to introduced predators than other genera (Henderson, 1992). ''A. rijgersmaei'' is not rare in mongoose-free Anguilla and St. Barths, and other species of the same genus are common in other mongoose-free islands of the Lesser Antilles (even extremely abundant in some areas of Saba, Dominica and St. Eustatius), even though dogs and cats have probably been living on these islands for hundreds of years.

References

Sources

*Day M (1996).
''Alsophis rijgersmaei''

2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Downloaded on 28 July 2007. *St Barth Natur

Taxonomy

Conservation

References

Sources

Further reading