A report on the status of the herpetofauna of the Commonwealth of Dominica, West Indies

Abstract

We review the status of the herpetofauna of the Commonwealth of Dominica, which is often cited as having the most complete extant herpetofauna of all the Lesser Antillean islands, a region which has suffered much historical extinction. Recent years have seen a number of threats of grave concern to island and regional endemic species, the chief of these being the arrival of chytridiomycosis on this island with negative effects on the mountain chicken Leptodactylus fallax, and the establishment of a non-native Greater Antillean anole, Anolis cristatellus, which has succeeded in displacing the native endemic Anolis oculatus from a part of the island in less than a decade.