ANIMAL VOYAGERS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 20 July 1925, Page 8

ANIMAL VOYAGERS.

NEW LIFE ON KRAKATAU. Krakatau, the volcanic; island which exploded in 1888 and destroyed all file on itself and a neighbouring island, ift once more becoming inhabited by several species of mammals, reptiles and wingless insects. The two islands were buried under hot a she® to a depth of 200 ft. For weeks the cover of , embers glowed, and when it cooled down to ordinary temperatures not a, living thing could be found. Twenty to thirty miles away. there was a rich flora and fauna. Vegetation was the first to come and stav, for animal life depends upon vegetable Life, and if any animals did come before the vegetation arrived it is certain they jieriished of -starvation, flying animats came next. In 1908. 25 years after the disaster the python and a lizard had conn©; but these are good swimmers and no terrestrial animals had yet arrived. But by 1921 rate had reached the island and spread all over it, ■while there were two kinds of geckos—little land lizards—as well as eleven species of wingless insects, four species of centipedes and 78 species of spiders; The .spiders at least some of them—were probably drifted out on strands of gossamer. The others may have crossed by means of driftwood. Ail l these facts were discovered through the work of Dr. Hammerman, of the Buitzenzorg Museum (Buitzenzorg, Java), who for yeans has been watching the rebabitation of Krakatau and Verlaten after their animal and vegetable life were'obliterated by the great volcanic explosion of f 883.