Twin cays

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Twin cays
Waters Caribbean Sea
Geographical location 16 ° 50 ′  N , 88 ° 6 ′  W Coordinates: 16 ° 50 ′  N , 88 ° 6 ′  W
Twin Cays (Belize)
Twin cays
Residents uninhabited

Twin Cays are a small group of islands in the Stann Creek District of Belize .

geography

Twin Cays consists of so-called " Mangrove Cays", a double island (the moon-shaped West Island and East Island ) and other small reef crowns, especially at North Point . They belong to the Belize Barrier Reef Platforms in the south-central part of the Belize Barrier Reef and emerged as the reef crowns of the reef and are accordingly heavily criss-crossed by channels and water holes. Starting from the Main Channel there is the Boston Bay , Turtle Pond and the Lair Channel as well as the Hidden Pond and other water holes in the interior of the island.

The islets extend from North Point and Little Dipper in the north about 1.3 km to the south and have a maximum width of only about 800 m. The highest point is given near North Point at 10.8  m .

geology

The islands consist of a 9 m thick layer of mangrove mud (peat) and lagoon sediments.

nature

The islands are fairly well explored in terms of biodiversity and geology. Drilling has been performed and studies of benthos and fauna are available. The insect fauna, the forest structure, and the fauna above the tidal fringes were examined. Above all, fiddler crabs were observed, with an estimated 8 million. Specimens represent the largest mass of living things. There are also lizards, snakes and crocodiles as well as a larger population of wild dogs.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ MacIntyre, Toscano: The Pleistocene Limestone Foundation below Twin Cays, Belize, Central America. ( online , English; PDF, 822 kB)
  2. ↑ C. Seabird McKeon, Ilka C. Feller: The Supratidal Fauna of Twin Cays , Belize. PDF In: ATOLL RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. 529. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC September 2004.

Web links

literature

  • Ian G. MacIntyre, Marguerite A. Toscano: The Pleistocene Limestone Foundation below Twin Cays, Belize, Central America. In: ATOLL RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. 511. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC September 2004.
  • Ivan Goodbody, Maria Cristina Diaz, Ilka C. Feller, Ian G. MacIntyre: The aquatic Environment of Twin Cays, Belize. In: Atoll research bulletin 512 (509) September 2004.
  • MA Faust: Three new benthic species of Prorocentrum (Dinophyceae) from Twin Cays, Belize: P. maculosum sp. nov., P. foraminosum sp. nov. and P. formosum sp. nov. Phycologia: November 1993, Vol. 32, No. 6, 1993: 410-418. PDF
  • Walentina H. de Weerdt, Klaus Rützler, Kathleen B. Smith: The Chalinidae (Porifera) of Twin Cays, Belize, and adjacent waters. In: Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Vol. 104, 1991: 189-205 BioStor