Natural History Wanderings

Science Daily  reports that 24 new species of lizards known as skinks, have been discovered in the Caribbean Islands. Unfortunately, half of these are either extinct or close to extinct. The others are all considered threatened with extinction.  Much of the loss of skink population has been due to predation by the mongoose, which is non-native species introduced by farmers to control rats. Read more at Science Daily Twenty-four new species of lizards discovered on Caribbean islands are close to extinction.

From Wikipedia: Skinks

Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae. Together with several other lizard families, including Lacertidae (the “true” or wall lizards), they comprise the superfamily or infraorder Scincomorpha. With about 1200 described species, the Scincidae are the second most diverse family of lizards, exceeded only by the Gekkonidae (or geckos)