{"id":635017,"date":"2026-09-24T22:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T22:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/635017\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T22:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T22:52:10","slug":"after-rabida-island-removed-invasive-rats-in-2011-scientists-later-confirmed-a-native-gecko-alive-there-that-had-previously-been-known-only-from-ancient-remains-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/635017\/","title":{"rendered":"After R\u00e1bida Island removed invasive rats in 2011, scientists later confirmed a native gecko alive there that had previously been known only from ancient remains | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AfterGecko rediscovered after eradication. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons Historically, R\u00e1bida Island in the Gal\u00e1pagos had no records of living leaf-toed geckos, only bone remains dating back thousands of years. It was in 2011 that the Gal\u00e1pagos National Park and its partners were able to eradicate brown rats that invaded the island. After a year, a gecko was spotted, and more geckos were collected through expeditions carried out in 2019 and 2021. The paper, published in June 2025, came almost 14 years after the eradication. The authors suggest the removal of the rats may have helped the geckos, but it is not known how the two species interacted on R\u00e1bida Island before the rats were removed.A 499-hectare island with no gecko records except bones 5,700 to 8,540 years oldR\u00e1bida, also called Jervis, is a 499-hectare island in the middle of Gal\u00e1pagos, located about 4.5 kilometers south of Santiago Island and 25 kilometers east of Isabela Island. There are 11 kinds of leaf-toed geckos, genus Phyllodactylus, distributed throughout the islands, but they are some of the most secretive land vertebrates on the archipelago because of their nocturnal lifestyle. No gecko specimen was ever collected from R\u00e1bida despite the extensive collecting effort from the late 19th century until the early 20th century.The sole record of gecko presence on R\u00e1bida came from sub-fossil remains estimated at 5,700 to 8,540 years old. The authors stated that it may be possible that no gecko specimen is recorded due to insufficient collecting effort. Field guides cited that there was an undescribed and possibly extinct gecko in R\u00e1bida but without details. This led the researchers to think that the geckos were already extinct when humans arrived on the archipelago.2011 eradication of brown rats, and one gecko photographed in 2012In 2011, the Gal\u00e1pagos National Park and its conservation partners carried out an eradication program targeting invasive brown rats. Island Conservation, which led the effort with the park, the Charles Darwin Foundation and The Raptor Center, says a gecko long thought extinct on the island was noticed a year later. In 2012, scientists and rangers surveying the island photographed a Phyllodactylus gecko, the first live leaf-toed gecko from R\u00e1bida to be documented in published literature. The specimen itself is no longer available and cannot be found in the collections where it was said to be deposited, so its identification rests on the photographs alone. The 2019 and 2021 collections, backed by tissue samples and physical specimens, provided the confirmation. Other groups that searched for the geckos prior to and during 2011 found no geckos or any trace of geckos.Nine geckos were sampled in October 2019 and 10 were collected in August 2021The observation was confirmed through two different expeditions. In October 2019, scientists collected tail tissue from nine individuals of geckos and returned the reptiles to nature. In early August 2021, ten whole specimens were caught by hand at night, mainly among lava rocks. These geckos were deposited in the vertebrate collection of the Charles Darwin Foundation in Puerto Ayora, while tissues were sent to the zoological museum of Pontificia Universidad Cat\u00f3lica del Ecuador in Quito. In a combined analysis of two mitochondrial genes, the R\u00e1bida geckos fell within Phyllodactylus maresi but differed from Santiago geckos by 19 mutations. The 2025 study in PLOS ONE<\/a>, led by Omar Torres-Carvajal, sequenced DNA from five of the samples. The R\u00e1bida geckos formed a strongly supported group closely related to Phyllodactylus maresi from Santiago and Marchena, and the authors assigned them to that species. Their morphology was similar to geckos from Santiago and Marchena.\"R\u00e1bida_Island\"<\/p>\n

Cove on the Northern Side of R\u00e1bida Island. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

Because of that genetic divergence, the authors classified the R\u00e1bida geckos as a distinct evolutionary unit that can be managed separately. However, there is a warning in place. Some uncertainty remains about the classification of Phyllodactylus maresi, because few complete museum specimens exist for comparison: only five in total, with three from Santiago and none from Marchena. The ten whole specimens collected on R\u00e1bida in 2021 now add to that limited reference material. The authors indicate that the geckos from R\u00e1bida Island may have been helped by the process of rodent eradication, with increased distribution and population levels making them more visible. Lizard populations in the Caribbean, as well as those on offshore New Zealand islands, have shown signs of recovery after rodent eradications were performed. The ecological connection between rodents and geckos on R\u00e1bida Island is not known. The paper reports no population estimate, and it cannot show whether the geckos survived hidden through the rat years or recolonized. It shows that a species thought lost was present, genetically distinctive, and found after the rats were removed.Another Gal\u00e1pagos rediscovery, and why voucher specimens matterThe authors compare the find with other Gal\u00e1pagos rediscoveries. A 2022 study in Communications Biology<\/a> showed that the Fernandina giant tortoise, Chelonoidis phantasticus, is not extinct. After the 2019 rediscovery, the only female found was moved to the park’s tortoise center, and expeditions began searching for males. A valuable point learned from the findings of this paper is that vouchers with DNA samples are ideal for recording common and rarely studied species like the leaf-toed gecko because this will allow conservation efforts to be linked to specific interventions, such as removal of invasive species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gecko rediscovered after eradication. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons Historically, R\u00e1bida Island in the Gal\u00e1pagos had no records of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[74627,133142,61,250303,60,269736,269735,82,263],"class_list":["post-635017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-biodiversity-conservation","tag-galapagos-islands","tag-ie","tag-invasive-species-eradication","tag-ireland","tag-leaf-toed-gecko","tag-rabida-island","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}