Holdings in the herpetology collection of the Yale Peabody Museum’s Division of Vertebrate Zoology includes specimens from throughout the world.
New
Caledonia, off the eastern coast of Australia in the Southern
Hemisphere tropics, is comprised of a main island (Grande Terre), the 3
Loyalty Islands, the Isle of Pine, and hundreds of smaller islands.
Grande
Terre is about 250 miles (about 400 km) long and about 30
miles (about 50 km) wide at the widest point. The habitat includes
mangrove swamps, grasslands, lowland shrub forests, mountain damp
forests, mountain dry forests and even moss forests. The highest point
on Grande Terre is Mont Panie, which is 5,341 feet (1,628 m) in
elevation.
Because they have been isolated from other
major land masses for at least 65 million years, most of the organisms
— plants, invertebrates (including insects), bats, birds and lizards —
in New Caledonia are unique to the region. Many of these species are
members of groups known otherwise only from fossils.
On a recent expedition to New Caledonia, Yale Peabody Museum herpetologist Greg Watkins-Colwell
and other experts surveyed much of the island of Grande Terre and some
of the smaller islands for lizards. The results of the expedition are
impressive. At least 2 new genera of lizard and as many as 20 new
species were collected and are in the process of being named.
The Yale Peabody Museum’s collections are available to legitimate
researchers for scholarly use. Loans are issued to responsible
individuals at established institutions. Loans and access to the
collection can be arranged through the Collections Manager.
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