Singer's book "St. John - Off the Beaten Track" has a section on mongoose. The Dutch sugar plantation owners were losing a lot of their crop to rats. In an effort to control the rats, they imported mongoose from Asia, since mongoose had a repuation as fierce predators of small animals.

It didn't work. Rats are nocturnal, feeding at night and nesting in trees during the day. Mongoose can't climb trees, and they are diurnal. So, when the rats were out at night eating sugar cane, the mongoose were sleeping. During the day, the rats were safely in their trees and the mongoose had to find other prey.

Mongoose are especially adept at catching snakes, and in Asia they are the only predators capable of killing and eating king cobra snakes. So, thanks to the mongoose there are few if any snakes on St. John.

I couldn't tell you anything about the lizards.

Hello Verletta,

Mongooses: Visit https://www.vinow.com/news/2004/mar/mongoose.php

House Geckos: http://www.smilinglizard.com/reptiles.htm

--Islander

Anyone that has any doubts about the usefulness of a good message board moderator need only to scroll down to Mongoose and Lizards.I bet I have 15-20 photos of the "Frangipani Catapillar" not knowing what the heck it was. Chris I've learned a lot from you as well.

Hello Wes,

Thank you! You made my afternoon! 🙂

--Islander

No thank you, you have saved many visitors, lots of time, money and pointed many of us in the right direction!