The greater Saint Croix skink (''Spondylurus magnacruzae'') 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 ...

skink Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae, a family in the infraorder Scincomorpha. With more than 1,500 described species across 100 different taxonomic genera, the family Scincidae is one of the most diverse families of lizards. Ski ...

found on

Saint 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 unincorpo ...

in the

United States Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...

. It was formerly present across most of Saint Croix where it was sighted with some regularity, but was largely extirpated from the island by the late 19th century due to the introduced

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 auropun ...

(''Urva auropunctata''). From then onwards, the species was only known from the satellite island of

Green Cay Green Cay is an uninhabited island of the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. It sits between the eastern tip of Little Jost Van Dyke and Tortola. It is in area. Environment The island, with its surrounding waters, has been designated a ...

, where it is known from a specimen collected in 1964. Further surveys detected only two other sightings: once in 1987 (this individual was photographed, and this remains the only known photograph of a live ''S. magnacruzae'') and once in September 2000. No further sightings have been recorded since then. Green Cay is a small island and also supports

black rats 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 ...

(''Rattus rattus''), which may threaten any surviving populations of the species.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3493731 Spondylurus Reptiles described in 2012 Reptiles of the Caribbean Endemic fauna of the Caribbean Taxa named by Stephen Blair Hedges Taxa named by Caitlin E. Conn