The herpetogeography of Hispaniola, West Indies

Abstract

The modern West Indian island of Hispaniola is in actuality a fusion of two formerly separate islands, each of which presumably supported a distinctive herpetofauna. With the union of these two paleoislands, there has been extensive to small interchange of these faunas; the purpose of the present paper is to analyze the degrees of similarity and difference between the two primal herpetofaunas. A brief sketch of the geography of Hispaniola is given. This is in turn followed by discussions of the 179 native species of amphibians and reptiles of Hispaniola, cataloguing them into six categories.