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Diversity in the Dutch Caribbean

Michiel Oversteegen and Gerard van Buurt and Marion Haarsma

DCSR revitalized: hundreds of new species recorded

Guido Keijl - 19 March 2025
Polistes myersi, Slagbaai, Bonaire, November 21st 2022
/ Foto:
Roy Kleukers

 

Ever since the creation of the Dutch Caribbean Species Register, somewhere in 2017, there has been an intermittent but steady flow of news items on the home page, to attract attention to a specific subject, a new species, interesting literature, et cetera. However, the latest news item visible on the website in January 2025 was published on October 21 st 2021. The reason for the long silence is that Sytske de Waart changed jobs and nobody replaced her. Since Sytske left, it seemed as if the DCSR was left to exist by itself ....
Luckily, this has changed in the summer of 2024. Although many facts and figures of DCSR are in constant view in the lower left corner of the home page, we will summarize the results of the work that has been done during the past few months, up until December 31st 2024. The large increase in the number of taxa recorded on the islands is especially due to extensive (subsurface, marine) surveys. Although not visible in the figures below, we have received considerable help of many authors and specialists, for which we are grateful.
 

  • newly created taxa 476, of which
       class 2
       order 7
       superfamily 2
       family 31
       subfamily 2
       genus 170
       subgenus 1
       species 249
       subspecies 12
     
  • per island
       Aruba 47
       Bonaire 68
       Curaçao 145
       Klein Bonaire 1
       Klein Curaçao 1
       Saba 16
       Sint Eustatius 15
       Sint Maarten 15
     
  • modified taxa 81

 

  • modified names 862, of which
       alternative 107
       invalid 1
       misspelled 2
       preferred 86
       synonym 82
       valid 584
       deleted 69
     
  • new references 114
     
  • new author names 177