{"id":92188,"date":"2025-07-25T19:39:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T19:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/92188\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T19:39:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T19:39:18","slug":"when-helicopters-poisoned-a-tiny-island-in-the-galapagos-a-once-extinct-animal-appeared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/92188\/","title":{"rendered":"When helicopters poisoned a tiny island in the Gal\u00e1pagos, a ‘once-extinct’ animal appeared"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once thought to be extinct on R\u00e1bida Island in the Gal\u00e1pagos, the leaf-toed gecko (Phyllodactylus maresi) has been rediscovered.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Endemic to the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands, the leaf-toed gecko measures just eight centimetres in length. Until recently, scientists only knew it existed on R\u00e1bida because of ancient, 5,000-year-old fossils.<\/p>\n

\"PhyllodactylusA leaf-toed gecko (Phyllodactylus maresi) on R\u00e1bida Island. Credit: Island Conservation<\/p>\n

In 2011, a restoration and rewilding project \u2013 led by Island Conservation with its partners Galapagos National Park, Charles Darwin Foundation and The Raptor Center \u2013 began on R\u00e1bida Island, along with ten other islands in the Gal\u00e1pagos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part of the project involved distributing poisoned bait over large areas using helicopters, the first time that this had been done in South America. <\/p>\n

The poison was being used to eradicate the non-native, invasive brown rats, which predate vulnerable native species \u2013 including geckos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rats were confirmed as eliminated from R\u00e1bida Island by 2012, and conservationists found that native wildlife began to bounce back, with populations able to recover and grow without the negative impact on the invasive predators.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A single gecko was found, photographed and collected in 2012, but the specimen went missing from the collection where it was meant to be stored.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, when field teams found and collected live geckos on R\u00e1bida Island in 2019 and 2021, morphological and DNA analysis \u2013 published in a paper in the journal\u00a0PLOS ONE\u00a0this month<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 confirmed that they were leaf-toed geckos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"PhyllodactylusA leaf-toed gecko pauses on a rock. Credit: Island Conservation<\/p>\n

\u201cThe return of this gecko highlights nature\u2019s incredible power to heal itself when given the chance,\u201d says Paula Casta\u00f1o, Island Conservation\u2019s Impact Program Manager. \u201cIt\u2019s another example of the recovery we\u2019ve seen on islands worldwide: when you rebalance an ecosystem, it can bounce back quickly and dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, the analysis revealed that the geckos from R\u00e1bida Island are distinct enough from the other populations of the species to be given the status of Evolutionary Significant Unit (ESU), highlighting the importance for conservation of this R\u00e1bida Island population.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s thought that further DNA analysis is needed on the\u00a0Phyllodactylus\u00a0genus, with additional sampling required, to determine the taxonomic status of the different populations.<\/p>\n

Top image: R\u00e1bida Island is a small, rugged isle in the Gal\u00e1pagos. Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

More amazing wildlife stories from around the world<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once thought to be extinct on R\u00e1bida Island in the Gal\u00e1pagos, the leaf-toed gecko (Phyllodactylus maresi) has been…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":92189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-92188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114915571444195709","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}