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Animals in Navassa Island
Navassa island, an unincorporated territory of the US, is a small, uninhabited island in the Caribbean sea, between Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica. Although unpopulated by people, it is populated by reptiles, insects, arthropods and fish.

Navassa Island Reptiles

Reptiles unique to the island include the Navassa anole, Cochran's croaking gecko, the Navassa dwarf gecko and the Navassa
Galliwasp
galliwasp. The Navassa Curly-tailed Lizard, now unfortunately extinct, was also unique to Navassa Island. There are two other extinct endemic reptiles sometimes considered full species; the Navassa Iguana and the Navassa Dwarf Boa.

Navassa Island Invertebrates

Survey collections of invertebrates on Navassa island recorded and documented 650 species, which featured a stunning 500 new insects, with a possible 30 percent being endemic to the island. Nearly 100 arthropods, which are mostly spiders, made up the rest of the discovered and listed species. Of these 100 arthropods, there were cataloged 40 new species of spider.

Invertebrates which have been found exclusively on Navassa Island include a may beetle phyllophaga navassa, a longhorned beetle, plectromerus navassae, a millipede macroxenodes navassaensis, a wall crab spider selenops trifidus, a shorttailed whipscorpion rowlandius steineri, a tanaid crustacean Saltipedis navassensis, and an isopod crustacean, Stenetrium kensleyi.

Navassa Island Fish

Marine fish discovered only at Navassa Island include the
Flagfin
Flagfin
Stargazer
stargazer Gillellus inescatus, a goby Evermannichthys bicolor and the Whitesaddle
Blenny
Blenny Starksia leucovitta. A third fish discovered at Navassa Island is the ribbon blenny
Emblemaria
emblemaria vitta
, whose name is based on the Latin noun vitta, meaning "band" referring to the ribbon-like shape of the orbital cirri, which also gives it its common name. Another blenny discovered at Navassa Island is Acanthemblemaria harpeza. Its name derives from the Greek noun harpeza meaning thorn-hedge, which refers to the branched nasal and orbital cirri that are bush-like with thorn spines on the head, and thus given the common name, thornbush blenny.'

Navassa National Wildlife Refuge

The US Geological Survey had two science expeditions to Navassa Island in 1998 and 1999, organized by the Center for Marine Conservation. These expeditions conducted an inventory of the natural resources. Because of the wealth of flora and fauna collected during these expeditions, Navassa Island was declared a National Wildlife Refuge in 1999.


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