Queimada Grande
| Queimada Grande | ||
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| Waters | Atlantic Ocean | |
| Geographical location | 24 ° 29 ′ 0 ″ S , 46 ° 40 ′ 30 ″ W | |
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| length | 1.5 km | |
| width | 500 m | |
| surface | 43 hectares | |
| Highest elevation | 200 m | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
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Queimada Grande, Portuguese Ilha da Queimada Grande, or Ilha das Cobras ("Snake Island"), also called "Island of Death" by the sensational press, is an island 33 kilometers south of the Brazilian southeast coast, which is mainly used in zoology by its snake population got known.
geography
Queimada Grande and the tiny neighboring island of Queimada Pequena, about twelve kilometers closer to the coast of the mainland, belong to the municipality of Itanhaém in the state of São Paulo, southwest of the city of Santos . Both are uninhabited and difficult to access.
The islands are made of granite. They were only separated from the Brazilian mainland at the end of the last Ice Age , at the end of the Pleistocene , 15,000 years ago. Queimada Grande is a ridge of hills, the greatest height of which is 200 m. The coasts consist of rugged rocks that drop steeply into the sea. The water depth around the island is 45 m. There are no sandy beaches, and landing is very difficult.
history
Traces of Indian settlement have not been found. The name of the island, the Portuguese word Queimada , denotes a fire or slash and burn. After Brazil was colonized by the Portuguese , there were in historical times, unclear when, slash and burn and an attempt to plant a banana plant , which failed. On the northernmost part of the main ridge of the island there is a lighthouse operated by the Brazilian Navy with a helipad . After three lighthouse keepers are said to have been killed by snake bites within a few years , the beacon, which is important for ships in the greater Sao Paulo area, is operated automatically.
vegetation
Queimada Grande still partly bears primary vegetation, the Mata Atlântica , especially on the western slopes and on the mountain peaks. The forest on the eastern slopes has grown much lower because it is constantly exposed to strong winds, which also enrich the soil with salt. Introduced grasses are now growing on about a fifth of the area that was previously covered by forest but was then cleared. The island's vegetation has not been changed anthropogenic since the clearing.
fauna
Apart from the snakes that made the island famous, there are few other animals on land. Lizards are rare, as is another species endemic to the island, the knick- toed tree frog Scinax peixotoi . Some amphibian species live on the shoreline . Migratory birds that rest on the island are the main source of food for the island's lanceolers . On the ground you can find u. a. the cockroach species Hormetica laevigata , which u. a. fed by bird droppings.
The marine fauna is very rich, with large fish there are numerous species of grouper ( Epinephelinae ), tetra (Characiformes) and sea parrots (Scarinae). Amateur fishing is subject to strict requirements by the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (IBAMA) , the Brazilian environmental protection agency.
The island lance viper
The island was once the place in the world with the highest density of venomous snakes. However, the various rumors that there were nine (according to other sources four to five) venomous snakes per square meter on the island is a myth or a calculation error. At the beginning of the 20th century, around 15,000 endemic island lanceolers ( Bothrops insularis ), which belong to the family of pit vipers ( Crotalidae ), lived on the approximately 430,000 m² island . It was not until 1921 that the Brazilian snake researcher Afrânio Pompílio Bastos do Amaral (1894–1982), who became director of the Instituto Butantan in the same year , recognized the island lance viper as a separate species.
Amaral examined the effects of the poison and said that the poison of the island lance viper is probably the fastest-acting poison of all lance vipers. This has to do with the fact that the preferred prey animals are small birds that have to make the snake unable to fly with the bite so that it does not fly away and become inaccessible to it. The adult snakes first fed on birds and occasionally other snakes, while the juveniles hunt amphibians and lizards.
After the First World War , the population was estimated at 3,000–4,000 otters, but a series of studies as early as 1930 showed that 50 percent of the animals are males, only 10 percent females and 40 percent intersexual , i.e. female animals with male mating organs ( hemipenis ). The latter are true hermaphrodites and capable of reproduction only in exceptional cases , so that the population continues to decline. In 1955, according to Alphonse Richard Hoge (1912–1982) from the Instituto Butantan , 70 percent were intersexes and only 3 percent were females. The researchers at the Instituto Butantan assume that because of the isolation of the island lance viper, the gene pool has been very small since the last ice age and that inbreeding-related hereditary disorders in the mechanism of sex determination have occurred.
A two-day herpetologist excursion in 1965 could not find a single specimen, in 1966 AR Hoge caught seven animals, one of which was taken care of by Robert Mertens (Senckenberg Museum Frankfurt / Main). In 1977 the herpetologist Hans-Günter Petzold suspected that the island lance viper would become extinct in the near future.
Nature reserve
The island is under nature protection. On January 31, 1984, the state of Sao Paulo made the island an “Area of Special Ecological Interest” (Area de Relevant Interest Ecológico, ARIE) by decree 89.336. On November 5, 1985, Federal Decree No. 91.887 was passed declaring the island a nature reserve of national interest. Entering the island and fishing within a radius of one kilometer is prohibited. There is only access for the scientists of the Instituto Butantan and the ambience researchers of the "Instituto Chico Mendes" for the conservation of biodiversity , a federal body that administers the nature reserves of Brazil. The Brazilian Navy is responsible for monitoring Queimada. It seems, however, that it cannot prevent the illegal fishing of island lanceolers.
In 2003 there were efforts by natural scientists, NGOs, nature conservationists and others to expand the ARIE protected area into a marine national park. The aim is to better protect the marine fauna in a zone two nautical miles around the island. These include sensitive corals and threatened species, including sea turtles and fish such as the caranha ( snapper , Lutjanus cyanopterus), which have not yet been protected under the ARIA decree. Conservation International is particularly committed to extended protection .
Shipwrecks
In the waters on the west side of the island there are two wrecks near Saco das Bananas Bay :
- The small commercial steamship Rio Negro of the Lloyd Brasileiro company , which was shipwrecked on July 17th, 1893, built in 1872, with a displacement of 450 gross tons. It collided with the island in bad weather and is currently at a depth of 12 to 18 m.
- The merchant ship Tocantins , also from Lloyd Brasileiro , which sank on August 30, 1933.
The remains of the wreck can still be seen today, as the waters around the island are extraordinarily clear and allow visibility to a depth of 30–40 m.
Trivia
In 2010, the Listverse website , specializing in superlative lists, placed the island in first place in the “Top 10 places you don't want to visit”, ahead of the contaminated Chernobyl zone and the mud volcanoes of Azerbaijan . This was repeated in 2014.
literature
- Martin Zinggl: The Snake Island . In: Terra Mater, 05/14
Evidence and Notes
- ^ A b Hans-Günter Petzold: Vipers and Pit Vipers. In Grzimeks Tierleben, Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom, Ed. Bernhard Grzimek. Zurich 1975-1977; Volume 6 (reptiles), p. 486
- ↑ Brasileiro, CA, Haddad, CFB, Sawaya, RJ & M. Martins (2007): A new and threatened species of Scinax (Anura: Hylidae) from Queimada Grande Island, southeastern Brazil. Zootaxa 1391: pages 47-55. ( PDF )
- ↑ listverse.com , accessed January 5, 2013.
- ↑ Travelbook , visited on December 26, 2014
Web links
- Snake Island at Atlas Obscura (English)
- Film report - Snake Island (English), VICE .