A team of Jamaican scientists and curators who left the island last week for Glasglow, Scotland, is expected to return this week with a 170-year-old lizard specimen, which terrestrial biologist Damion Whyte says will open a conversation on Jamaican artefacts being held abroad that need to be repatriated.

“Why we are making a big deal about this is that when the owners of museums abroad charge people to come in and view specimens, many of those specimens are not from Europe, they are from the Caribbean. They also have Taino artefacts, so this just opens the conversation as to what they have for us,” Whyte, who is a Phd candidate in Conservation Biology at The University of the West Indies (The UWI), told the Jamaica Observer.

He said the four-member team from The UWI and the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) had to organise and obtain the requisite permit to repatriate the specimen which will most likely be housed at the IOJ.

The specimen is a Jamaican giant galliwasp, which is believed to have been collected in the 1850s.

A Sky News report said it became part of the University of Glasgow collections in 1888, and its return to Jamaica is said to be the first repatriation of a natural history specimen in the Caribbean.

According to the report, the repatriation of the specimen “comes after a 2019 memorandum of understanding between The UWI and University of Glasgow which aims to foster collaboration in research and education and address the historical legacies of colonialism”.

“By returning the galliwasp to its rightful place we take a small but significant step towards laying the foundation for a regional and international discussion on repatriation,” the
Sky News report quotes The UWI Vice Chancellor Professor Sir Hilary Beckles.

Whyte agreed.

“There is this notion that Third World countries like Jamaica can’t take care of their own natural heritage, hence the developed countries should keep these valuable collections. I would love for us to prove them wrong,” he told the Observer.

“The conversation of the Jamaican giant galliwasp has reached the international community. Many people are now aware that there are several artefacts in private collections and museums that people were unaware of. It now starts the conservation on whether these artefacts should be returned to where they got them from,” he argued.

Whyte said the species have not been seen nor collected since the 18th century. “It is thought that they might have become extinct due to the introduction of invasive species such as rats and mongoose that preyed on the species,” he explained.

He said the genus Celestus contains 11 species of lizards, 10 of which are endemic to Jamaica. The other is endemic to Haiti.

“The members of this group are known as galliwasp in Jamaica. There is a local folklore that you will die if a galliwasp stings you and reaches water before you. However this is a lizard, and it doesn’t have venom,” Whyte explained.

He said that three species from Jamaica are presumed to be extinct, including the largest one, Celestus occiduus, also known as the Jamaican giant galliwasp.

Whyte said that while there have been a few expeditions across Jamaica he has never seen the species before, other than in pictures.

“Looking at it gives me a visual perspective of the animal. This could give me insights on how to rediscover the species,” he said.

“Jamaica does not have a specimen of the Jamaican giant galliwasp in its collection, and the naturalist and scientific communities were delighted to hear that one of the specimens is returning to Jamaica,” added Whyte.

“I hope it will encourage future scientists, especially from Jamaica, to carry out needed research on the group. We believe there are more than 10 species in Jamaica, however limited work has been done on the group. It would also provide some funding opportunities for research,” he argued.

“Many Jamaicans don’t know that we have 10 species; they also believe that they are all the same. I hope this will encourage people to stop persecuting the animals as they think that they will sting and kill them. Some people also believe that over 150-year-old species will be released into the wild and come into their houses.

“There is a slim chance that the animal could still be somewhere in Jamaica, and we could rediscover it. This is similar to the story of the Jamaican iguana, which we thought was extinct from the mid-1950s until rediscovered in the 1990s,” Whyte said.

Noting that the return of the specimen is creating waves in the international community, Whyte said he hopes the attention will encourage the Jamaican Government and people to care about our local species, including lizards, which are not liked and persecuted.

“I am not telling people to love them but to [instead] respect our wildlife,” he told the
Observer.

“I also expect it would put some life in our museums that are underfunded. We have collections that are struggling to be preserved and need funding,” Whyte added.