Little Scrub Island is an island in

Anguilla Anguilla is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Sa ...

, a

British Overseas Territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

. The island is to the northeast of the main island of Anguilla, and west of Scrub Island. Despite its rocky, inhospitable environment, it is a nesting ground for various birds and home to an endemic species of lizard, the Little Scrub Island ground lizard ('' Pholidoscelis corax'').

Geography

Little Scrub Island is a rocky island surrounded by choppy waters that contribute to making the shoreline inhospitable. The island has no beaches nor bodies of

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes seawater and brackish water, but it does include non-salty mi ...

. It covers an area of and rises to a maximum of elevation of

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

. It is located west of the bigger Scrub Island and northeast of the main island of Anguilla.

Flora and fauna

The island was completely stripped of flora by

Hurricane Luis Hurricane Luis was a long lived and powerful tropical cyclone that was the strongest hurricane to make landfall and the third-most intense hurricane recorded during the 1995 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm, along with Humberto, Iris, and ...

in 1995 and

Hurricane Lenny Hurricane Lenny was the strongest November Atlantic hurricane since the 1932 Cuba hurricane. It was the sixteenth tropical cyclone, twelfth named storm, eighth hurricane, and record-breaking fifth Category 4 hurricane in the 1999 Atlan ...

in 1999. Since then, the flora has recovered; morning glory ('' Ipomea violaceae'') and prickly pear cactus (''

Opuntia dillenii ''Opuntia dillenii'' is a species of prickly pear native to the tropical and subtropical Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's ...

'') can be found in abundance on the island. These two plants are the main food source of '' Pholidoscelis corax'', also known as the Little Scrub Island ground lizard, which is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the island. The island provides a nesting site for various birds, including the

brown noddy The brown noddy or common noddy (''Anous stolidus'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. The largest of the noddies, it can be told from the closely related black noddy by its larger size and plumage, which is dark brown rather than black. The ...

bridled tern The bridled tern (''Onychoprion anaethetus'')Sometimes the name is (wrongly?) spelled as ''S. anaestheta'', for instance in: is a seabird of the family Laridae. It is a bird of the tropical oceans. The scientific name is from Ancient Greek. Th ...

sooty tern The sooty tern (''Onychoprion fuscatus'') is a tern in the family Laridae. It is a seabird of the tropical oceans, and remarkably, has evolved the ability to fly for years at a time, skimming the sea surface for food, and returning to land only ...

roseate tern The roseate tern (''Sterna dougallii'') is a species of tern in the family Laridae. The genus name ''Sterna'' is derived from Old English "stearn", "tern", and the specific ''dougallii'' refers to Scottish physician and collector Dr Peter McD ...

, and the

brown booby The brown booby (''Sula leucogaster'') is a large seabird of the booby family Sulidae, of which it is perhaps the most common and widespread species. It has a pantropical range, which overlaps with that of other booby species. The gregarious bro ...

. Several dove (''

Zenaida aurita The Zenaida dove (''Zenaida aurita'') is a member of the bird family Columbidae, which includes doves and pigeons. It is the national bird of Anguilla, where it is locally referred to as "Turtur, turtle dove". Description The Zenaida dove is a ...

'') nests were also identified during a 2010 survey, along with a single

Sargasso shearwater The Sargasso shearwater (''Puffinus lherminieri'') is a small tropical seabird in the petrel family. The only shearwater to nest primarily in the Caribbean, it ranges throughout the western Atlantic during the non-breeding season. Its specific ep ...

nest.

Brown pelican The brown pelican (''Pelecanus occidentalis'') is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mouth ...

s also used the island at that time, but they were not observed to be nesting.

References

{{Reflist Islands of Anguilla