What Redonda is
Redonda is the third land of the state of Antigua and Barbuda. It is a dependency: a sheer volcanic rock southwest of Antigua, uninhabited since the guano miners left. Seabirds use the cliffs — boobies, frigatebirds, tropicbirds. In 2023 the island and the sea around it were brought into a protected area, the Redonda Ecosystem Reserve.
For a century the rock was eaten down to dust. Feral goats and black rats, both brought by people, stripped the plants. By 2012 about sixty goats were left, and they were starving. The Government of Antigua and Barbuda, the Environmental Awareness Group, and Fauna & Flora removed the goats and the rats in 2016–2017. The goats were taken to Antigua. The vegetation came back. The lizards came back with it.
Four lizards, one rock
The species that live only there
- Redonda ground lizard — Pholidoscelis atratus. The ground dragon. Jet black, long tail. Critically endangered. After the goats and rats left, surveys found the density rising from a thin scatter to hundreds per hectare.
- Redonda tree lizard — Anolis nubilus. The anole of that cliff. Counts rose in the first year after the clearance.
- Redonda skink — Copeoglossum redondae. Named from the island. A skink, not a snake.
- Redonda dwarf gecko — an unnamed Sphaerodactylus. Small, yellow, still being described.
These are not pets from a catalog. They evolved on one rock because nothing else could reach them. The wild stock still lives on Redonda. The recovery is the point of the clearance.
Not a breed. A starvation
The tiny goats
There is no endemic Redonda goat. The tiny goats were feral animals, stunted because they had eaten the island down to stone and then had nothing left. About sixty remained in 2012, starving. In 2016 and 2017 they were caught and flown to Antigua, where a drought-hard goat still has a use. Leaving them on the rock would have kept the lizards on the edge.
That is the honest story. Small goats. A broken hill. A removal that let the ground dragon multiply.
Come and see them at SwissX Island
The wild lizards stay on Redonda. The visit is here. SwissX Island keeps a seeing of these almost-extinct lineages — the ground dragon, the tree lizard, the skink, the dwarf gecko — and a small drought-hard goat herd in the sanctuary yard, the Redonda line after the rock. Gryphon Island, the eight-acre man-made shore across the lagoon from Overlook 366, is where the genetically cloned creatures and plants are held. The day pass is the gate.
A seeing is not a claim that a bottle treats a disease. It is a walk.
Day pass · $39.95 Overlook 366 Gryphon tour · $99
WhatsApp the gate on +1 268 780 4133.