The Plana Cays are a group of two small uninhabited islands in the southern Bahama Islands, located east of Acklins Island and west of Mayaguana Island. The indigenous Lucayan people called the islands Amaguaya, meaning "toward the middle lands".[1]
The eastern cay was the last natural habitat of the Bahamian Hutia, a species of rabbit-sized rodent. It was thought to be extinct until 1966, when a population was found on the Plana Cays by biologist Garrett Clough. Hutias have since been transplanted from the Plana Cays to other parts of the Bahamas.[2]
The Plana Cays have been suggested as the first landfall of Christopher Columbus in the New World.[3][4][non-primary source needed]
References
- ^ Ahrens, Wolfgang P. (2015). "Naming the Bahamas Islands: History and Folk Etymology". Onomastica Canadiana. 94 (2): 101. ISSN 2816-7015.
- ^ "Hungry for hutia? Our taste for Bahamas' "most peaceable rodent" shaped its diversity". eurekalert.org (Press release). Gainesville, FL: Florida Museum of Natural History. 28 January 2020.
- ^ Pickering, Keith A. (August 1994). "Columbus's Plana landfall: Evidence for the Plana Cays as Columbus's 'San Salvador'" (PDF). DIO – the International Journal of Scientific History. 4 (1): 13–32. Retrieved 16 March 2009.
- ^ "Updated Columbus Landfall". columbuslandfall.com. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
- Atrill, Rod (2000). "The Southern Bahamas". www.bahamaswildlife.fsnet.co.uk. Retrieved 20 February 2005.