Avila University biologist Bob Powell is
the co-describer of a new species of
lizard collected on Union Island in the
St. Vincent Grenadines, a small island in the southern Caribbean.

The lizard was initially brought to the attention of Powell and his colleague, Robert W. Henderson of the Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by a resident of the St. Vincent Grenadines. Father Mark de Silva is an amateur naturalist and he encountered the new lizard during a botanical survey. Silva sent photographs of the lizard to the biologists asking for help in identifying it. Both Powell and Henderson have dedicated many years to studying reptiles in the West Indies and immediately recognized the lizard as an undescribed species. With funding from the National Science Foundation, they already had plans to travel to St. Vincent in June to arrange for future research, so a meeting with Father de Silva was added to their itinerary. A several-hour search in a forest preserve on Union Island produced two additional specimens of the new species, and allowed Powell and Henderson to examine and describe the habitat in which the species occurs. Enthusiastic cooperation from the St. Vincent Forestry Department and Ministry of Agriculture provided the proper permits for bringing the lizards to the U.S.

The lizard is a diminutive species of gecko that lives in the leaf litter of dry forest on Union. It belongs to a genus of lizards called Gonatodes that occurs in southern Central America and northern South America. The new species is only about 1.5 inches long, but beautifully colored. It is the first representative of the genus that is endemic to the West Indies. A formal description of the lizard by Powell and Henderson will appear in the Caribbean Journal of Science in December.