Mohotane
| Mohotane (Molopu) | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Waters | Pacific Ocean | |
| Archipelago | Marquesas | |
| Geographical location | 10 ° 0 ′ S , 138 ° 50 ′ W | |
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| length | 7.2 | |
| width | 1.9 | |
| surface | 13 km² | |
| Highest elevation | (unnamed) 520 m |
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| Residents | uninhabited | |
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Mohotane , also Mohotani, Moho Tani, Motane , more rarely Molopu , old names: San Pedro, Onateayo, is an uninhabited island in the eastern Pacific Ocean , which geographically belongs to the Marquesas archipelago in French Polynesia and politically to the municipality of Hiva Oa , sub-municipality ( Commune associée ) Atuona .
Geography and geology
Mohotane is located in the southern group of the Marquesas, 18 km southeast of Hiva Oa and can be seen from there on a clear day. The 7.2 × 1.9 km large island has an area of around 13 km². The crescent shape that opens to the east reveals that it is the remainder of the crater rim of a sunken volcano. The basaltic rocks of which Mohotane mainly consists are 2.46 to 1.76 million years old.
The island is surrounded all around by a steep coast, which slopes almost vertically 300 to 400 m in the south and south-west. In the southeast the coast rises a little more gently. There are no beaches. Almost the entire west is taken up by a plateau that slopes directly to the sea. The highest point at 520 m is nameless and is located in the southern third of the island.
Just under 300 meters southwest is the 245 m high and 15 hectare large side island Terihi in front of it, no more than a bare rock protruding steeply from the sea.
Mohotane is located in the tropical climate zone. Since the island - like Eiao - is relatively low compared to the rest of the Marquesas, it can only benefit little from the damp trade winds . The rainfall is relatively low with an average of 500 mm per year. Although narrow and steep gorges can be seen at several points along the coast, apparently washed out by the occasional heavy rain, there are no continuously flowing waters.
Flora and fauna
Mohotane has been under protection since 1971 (Commission des sites de la Polynésie française, Ordinance No. 2559 of July 28, 1971). Hunting is regulated and requires a permit, but the remote island is visited without a permit. In addition, trees are illegally felled to obtain wood for the souvenir industry. There is still a lack of effective management and monitoring of the protection zone.
Sheep introduced by French settlers to Hiva Oa in the second half of the 19th century have been released into the wild, causing erosion by grazing the low vegetation.
flora
Mohotane can be divided into three vegetation zones: the east is arid in a wide strip, the north is sparsely overgrown and the central west of the island is covered by a dense, largely pristine forest.
The entire east is arid because of the animal bite, the vegetation cover is only sparse. The Nicotiana fragrans var. Fatuhivensis , a tobacco plant , endemic to Fatu Hiva and Mohotane, purslane ( Portulaca oleracea ) and the grasses Eragrostis xerophila and Brachiaria reptans grow in favorable locations .
The northern part of the island is also badly damaged by grazing. The evergreen shrub Arbutilon hirtum , Cordia lutea and Waltheria tomentosa occur as low growth forms. Pisonia grandis , Premna tahitensis and Morinda citrifolia also grow in the few places that the animals cannot reach .
The central plateau in the west is covered by a dense forest area that covers about a quarter of the island. It consists of huge Pisonia grandis , which often reach a height of 30 to 40 m. Other common trees are Cordia subcordata , Thespesia populnea , Hibiscus tiliaceus , Pandanus tectorius , Ficus marcuesensis, Casuarina equisetifolia and occasionally coconut palms .
fauna
There are only two species of mammals, neither of which are indigenous : the Pacific rat , probably introduced as a food animal by Polynesians , and sheep, which Europeans introduced in the 19th century.
Ten species of seabirds and seven species of land birds, two of which are endemic, have been observed on Mohotane:
Frigate birds nest in the large pisonia trees . Other seabirds found on Mohotane and Terihi include the noddi ( Anous stolidus ), the sooty tern ( Sterna fuscata ) and the fairy tern ( Gygis alba ).
Among the land birds, the Marquesas monarch , in the variation Pomarea mendozae montanensis , and Acrocephalus caffer consobrinus , a subspecies of the long-billed warbler , are endemic. Other rare and endangered species are the Marquesas reed warbler ( Acrocephalus mendanae ), the Marquesas langan ( Aerodramus ocistus ) and the Petit Thouars fruit pigeon ( Ptilinopus dupetithouarsii ).
history
Mohotane is now uninhabited, but there is clear archaeological evidence that suggests permanent Polynesian settlement. The American anthropologist Ralph Linton (1893–1953) located the remains of a village. Thor Heyerdahl found several stone house platforms (paepae) during a short foray in the arid east of the island in 1938. The island was once inhabited by a single clan called "Moi-Atiu", a sideline of a tribe of Hiva Oa.
Mohotane was discovered in 1595 by the Spanish navigator Alvaro de Mendaña de Neyra on his second voyage to Europe. He did not set foot on the island, but baptized it “San Pedro” after St. Simon Peter and based on the name of his captain Pedro Fernández de Quirós . Mendana describes it as "covered with a lot of forest" and could see no signs of residents.
James Cook crossed the sound between the islands of Hiva Oa and Mohotane during his second voyage to the Pacific on April 7, 1774 , but without entering Mohotane. He describes the island as follows:
"St. Pedro [Mohotane] is quite high but not mountainous and about 3 leagues in circumference. [The island] is 4 ½ leagues south of the eastern tip of La Dominica [Hiva Oa] and we don't know whether it is inhabited or not, but probably not as it doesn't appear that nature has provided it with everything that People need. "
On the sketch map of William Wales , astronomer on board the Resolution , Mohotane is marked with the name “Onateayo”, probably the name given to him by the inhabitants of the island of Hiva Oa.
Others
In his novel " Die Propellerinsel " , published in 1895, Jules Verne compares the Marquesas Archipelago with a squadron of French warships:
“The largest would then be the first-class ships“ Nuka-Hiva ”and“ Hiva-Oa ”; the middle the cruisers of different ranks "Hiaou", "Uapou" and "Uauka"; the smallest finally the Avisos "Motane", "Fatou-Hiva" and "Taou-Ata", while the islets and atolls would be simple pinnacles and boats - only that none of them are movable. "
Individual evidence
- ^ Brian Richardson: From Longitude to Empire - The Articulations of Place in the Voyages of Captain Cook , Spring 2001, p. 482
- ↑ [1]
- ^ A b c Jean-Ives Meyer: L'île de Mohotane (Motane): état de la biodiversité et principales menaces; Contribution à la Biodiversité de la Polynésie française No. 3, Papeete 1996
- ↑ R. Brousse: La géologie des îles hautes, Atlas de la Polynésie Française, ORSTOM, Paris 1993, pp. 28-30
- ↑ Valérie Clouard & Alain Bonneville: Ages of seamounts, islands and plateaus on the Pacific plate. In: Foulger, GR, Natland, JH, Presnall, DC, and Anderson, DL, (eds.): Plates, plumes, and paradigms, Geological Society of America Special Paper No. 388, p. 17
- ^ DT Holyoak & JC. Thibault: Habitats, morphologie et inter-actions écologiques des oiseaux insectivores de Polynésie orientale, in: L'Oiseau et la Revue Francaise d'Ornithologie, Volume 47, 1977, pp. 115-147
- ^ Dieter Mueller-Dombois & Raymond Fosberg: Vegetation of the Tropical Pacific Islands , New York 1998, p. 454
- ↑ Direction de l´environnement Polynésie française (DIREN) ( Memento of the original from June 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Ralph Linton: Archeology of the Marquesas Islands, Honolulu 1925, p. 178
- ^ Thor Heyerdahl: Fatu Hiva , Bertelsmann-Verlag Munich-Gütersloh-Vienna 1956, pp. 263–264
- ^ Frederic William Christian: Eastern Pacific lands: Tahiti and the Marquesas islands, London 1910, p. 205
- ↑ The voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros - 1595 to 1606; translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham, Hakluyt Society London 1904, p. 19
- ↑ JC Beaglehole: The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery , Cambridge 1968, Vol. 2, p. 372
