Museums often celebrate new acquisitions, especially something rare or historic. In April 2024, scientists from the Natural History Museum of Jamaica and The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus accepted a very rare and historic specimen: a 16-inch lizard called the Jamaican giant galliwasp (Celestus occiduus). It had previously been stored in the Hunterian museum at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
“‘Celeste’ is home!” announced one Jamaican news outlet, invoking the nickname scientists had given the reptile, which they believed was a female.
Museums often celebrate new acquisitions, especially something rare or historic. In April 2024, scientists from the Natural History Museum of Jamaica and The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus accepted a very rare and historic specimen: a 16-inch lizard called the Jamaican giant galliwasp (Celestus occiduus). It had previously been stored in the Hunterian museum at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
“‘Celeste’ is home!” announced one Jamaican news outlet, invoking the nickname scientists had given the reptile, which they believed was a female.
Why would a preserved lizard, some 170 years old, evoke such excitement?
Celeste was collected in the 1850s and represents a species that was endemic to Jamaica but is now classified as critically endangered and possibly extinct. Scientists in Jamaica, who have never seen or handled one of these lizards, are elated to have one to study.
As scholars of Jamaican landscape histories who are interested in environmental justice, we believe this repatriation illustrates important truths about colonialism and its legacies. Celeste’s 170-year residence in a Scottish university collection speaks to uncomfortable connections between colonialism and natural history.
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