Tintamarre is the largest satellite island of St. Martin, covering a little less than one square mile. It is also known as Flat Island, and has a fascinating history, including a King of Tintamarre and a now-abandoned landing strip that served as home base for the airline Compagnie Aérienne Antillaise. I was lucky enough to get the chance to visit earlier this month and spend a little bit of time on the island.

The island is primarily covered in scrub, with beaches and cliffs at the edges. It’s the best place in St. Martin to see tropicbirds, which nest in the cliffs. It is also home to a different subspecies of ground lizard (Ameiva plei) than St. Martin. While the subspecies analifera is found on mainland St. Martin, the lizards on Tintamarre are the same subspecies found on Anguilla and St. Barths. The differences are subtle, but noticeable.

I think it would be very exciting to do a wildlife survey of Tintamarre to get a better understanding of what animals are there and how they do or don’t differ from those on St. Martin.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 15th, 2011 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Explorations, Les Fruits sur la Terre. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.