Vostok Island

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Vostok Island

Vostok Island also known as Staver Island, is an uninhabited coral island in the central Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
, part of the Line Islands

Line Islands

The Line Islands, or Equatorial Islands, are a group of eleven atolls and low coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean south of the Hawaiian Islands, eight of which belong to Kiribati, while three are United States territories grouped with the United States Minor Outlying Islands....
belonging to Kiribati

Kiribati

Kiribati , officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. It is composed of List of islands belonging to Kiribati and one Tectonic uplift island, dispersed over 3,500,000 square kilometres, straddling the equator, and bordering the International Date Line to the east....
. Other names for the island include "Anne Island", "Bostock Island", "Leavitts Island", "Reaper Island", "Wostock Island" or "Wostok Island".

ok is located at , and covers a land area of 24 hectares. Its nearest neighbors are Flint Island

Flint Island

Flint Island is an uninhabited coral atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, part of the Southern Line Islands belonging to Kiribati....
, 158 km south-southeast; Caroline Atoll, 230 km to the east; and Malden Island

Malden Island

Malden Island , sometimes called Independence Island in the nineteenth century, is a low, arid, uninhabited island in the central Pacific Ocean, about in area....
, 709 km north-northwest.

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Encyclopedia

Vostok Island also known as Staver Island, is an uninhabited coral island in the central Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

Line Islands

Kiribati

Geography, flora and fauna

Vostok is located at , and covers a land area of 24 hectares. Its nearest neighbors are Flint Island

Flint Island

Malden Island

Malden Island , sometimes called Independence Island in the nineteenth century, is a low, arid, uninhabited island in the central Pacific Ocean, about in area....
, 709 km north-northwest. It is 1.3 km in length, and is triangular-shaped.

Beaches on the island range between 25 and 50 meters wide, composed of coral sand and rubble. There is no lagoon or fresh water on the island, and no known freshwater lens. Vostok's major portion is covered with a pure stand of Psionia trees rooted in moist peat soil one meter thick. These trees, with heights of up to 30 meters, grow so densely that no other plants can grow beneath them. The herbs Boerhavia repens and Sesuvium portulacastrum round out the known vegetation.

An attempt to plant coconut seedlings on Vostok in 1922 failed, and unlike the nearby islands of Caroline and Flint, no coconut palms are known to exist on the island today.

A color photo of Vostok Island may be seen .

Noteworthy fauna includes several species of seabirds, including the Red-footed Booby

Red-footed Booby

The Red-footed Booby, Sula sula, is a large seabird of the gannet family, Sulidae. They are powerful and agile fliers, but they are clumsy in takeoffs and landings....
(Sula sula), Great Frigatebird

Great Frigatebird

The Great Frigatebird is a large bird migration#Irruptions and dispersal seabird in the frigatebird family . Major nesting populations are found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as well as a population in the South Atlantic....
(Fregata minor), Lesser Frigatebird

Lesser Frigatebird

The Lesser Frigatebird, Fregata ariel, is a species of frigatebird.It nests in Australia, among other locations.There is a single record from the Western Palearctic, from Eilat in the Gulf of Aqaba....
(F. ariel), Black Noddy

Black Noddy

The Black Noddy or White-capped Noddy is a seabird from the tern family. It resembles the closely-related Brown or Common Noddy , but is smaller with darker plumage, a whiter cap, a longer, straighter beak and shorter tail....
(Anous minutus), White Tern

White Tern

The White Tern is a small seabird found across the tropical oceans of the world. Sometimes known as the Fairy Tern although this name is potentially confusing as it is the common name of the Fairy Tern Sternula nereis....
(Gygis alba), Masked Booby

Masked Booby

The Masked Booby, Sula dactylatra, is a large seabird of the gannet family, Sulidae. This species breeds on islands in tropical oceans, especially on the Galapagos islands, except in the eastern Atlantic; in the eastern Pacific it is replaced by the Nazca Booby, Sula granti, which was formerly regarded as a subspecies of Masked Booby...
(Sula dactylatra), Brown Booby

Brown Booby

The Brown Booby is a large seabird of the gannet family, Sulidae. The adult brown booby reaches about 76 cm. in length. Its head and upper body are covered in dark brown, with the remainder being a contrasting white....
(S. leucogaster) and Brown Noddy

Brown Noddy

The Brown Noddy or Common Noddy Anous stolidus is a seabird from the tern family. The largest of the Noddy , it can be told from the closely related Black Noddy by its larger size and plumage, which is dark brown rather than black....
(Anous stolidus). The Polynesian Rat

Polynesian Rat

The Polynesian Rat, or Pacific Rat , known to the Maori as kiore, is the third most widespread species of rat in the world behind the Brown Rat and Black Rat....
and the Azure-tailed Skink

Skink

Skinks are the most diverse group of lizards. They comprise the family Scincidae which shares the superfamily or infraorder Scincomorpha with several other lizard families, including Lacertidae ....
(Emoia cyanura), togther with Coconut Crab

Coconut crab

The coconut crab, Birgus latro, is the largest land-living arthropod in the world and is probably at the limit of how big terrestrial animals with exoskeletons can get under the prevailing conditions....
s and Green Turtles, completes the known land fauna.

History

First sighted in 1820 by the Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
n explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen

Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen

Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen served as a naval officer of the Russian Empire and commanded the second Russian expedition to circumnavigation the globe....
, who named the island for his ship ("Vostok" means "East" in Russian). Vostok was claimed under the Guano Act of 1856, but was never mined for phosphate. It is unknown whether the island has ever been inhabited at all, though the presence of rats suggests that ancient Polynesians might have visited there, at least. No evidence of permanent settlement has ever been discovered.

Vostok formed part of the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, until becoming a part of newly-independent Kiribati in 1979. American claims on the island were vacated in the Treaty of Tarawa

Treaty of Tarawa

On September 20, 1979, representatives of the newly-independent Republic of Kiribati and of the United States met in Tarawa to sign a treaty of friendship between the two nations, known as the Treaty of Tarawa....
in that same year.

Vostok Island is currently designated as the Vostok Island Wildlife Sanctuary. Its isolated nature means it is rarely visited, save by the occasional scientist or yachter. Landing is said to be difficult, and no harbor or anchorage exists.

External links

- includes a sketch map
- includes photo and sketch map
- satellite photograph