Great Frigate Bird - Nauru

More than 90 years of mining phosphate, a rich fertilizer base, had provided Nauru with a brief period of wealth, but it also created an environmental disaster. The phosphate fields are now depleted and have turned almost 80 percent of Nauru into a landscape resembling the barren surface of the moon.

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Fregata minor - The great frigate bird is found throughout the Pacific, Indian, and Southern Atlantic Oceans. Both sexes have a red gular sac hanging from their throat. This featherless pouch is used for storing food plucked from the water. The males also use this sac during courtship displays by inflating it into an enormous balloon to attract females. Frigate birds snatch their food out of the ocean on the wing. They do not land in the water. Their short legs and two meter wingspan would make it almost impossible to take off.

Polynesian Rat - Nauru

Rattus exulans - The Polynesian rat, also known as the Pacific rat, originated in Southeast Asia. It cannot swim for long distances and probably followed human migration onto the Pacific islands by stowing away in the vessels used by the first arrivals as they crossed from one Pacific island to another. As an invasive species, the Polynesian rat has been the direct cause of extinctions for many endemic plant and animal species once found throughout the Pacific region.

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Nauru had been inhabited by Polynesian people for over 3,000 years. The twelve pointed star on the national flag and seal represents the original 12 tribes of Nauru. The first European to visit the island was John Fearn; the British whaling captain arrived in 1798. The beauty of the island and the friendly reception of the native population prompted Fearn to name the island “Pleasant Island.” Nauru had been under the control of Germany, Australia, and Japan, but became self-ruling in January 1968.