Transcript
Once the photo was sent in, 23 traps were laid in the area of the sighting, and three of the small scaled reptiles were caught alive and well.
The Ridge to Reef project, which is funded by the UNDP and Global Environment Facility, conducted the reptile survey with the Ministry of Natural Resources and scientists from the United States.
Ridge to Reef spokesperson Thomas Talagi says it was an exciting find as there are predators like rats that eat it.
"It looks like any normal reptile we would see around but this one here has a shiny body with sharp and long claws on it but for the untrained eye you'd think it was just another skink."
The five year Ridge to Reef project is helping the ministry to focus on protecting endangered species.
Dave Butler is a New Zealander who helped conduct a recent technical survey for the skink on Niue.
He says it is hugely significant because with no vast bio diversity on island, it is one of Niue's real treasures.
The fact the species has been rediscovered is huge.
"Firstly it seems to just be found on Niue and on American Samoa which is rather strange so one of the real questions is whether the Niuean one is a separate species in which case it might be the only kind of reptile that is only found on Niue. And the second real interest in it is because it is really rare and that scientists haven't seen it for several years and there has been the occasional sighting and so that was one of the real aims of this recent survey to relocate it and see if it really existed."
Dave Butler says one theory explaining its survival could be that some found a good hiding place that is difficult for predators to get to.
"With limestone outcrops and pinnacles and such like the sightings seem to have come from the coast and this latest find was in one of the areas of incredible rough terrain and crevasses and the feeling was this hadn't really been properly surveyed before partly because of its danger of working in it so it is probably an area where the skinks could hold on in the face of the main threats to them of feral rats and cats."
One of Niue's goals is to establish a conservation area but the Ministry of Natural Resources director general, Josie Tamate, says it is not an easy thing to do but there is a national biodiversity strategy in place.
"We wanted to make sure that we do have our endangered species there and know how can we go ahead then and put in measures of protection or our management measure and ensure those species remain there or be protected somehow."
She says that often people don't focus on the fact that the eco-system is fragile and every change has some kind of an impact.
"Every species and every plant and every animal within an environment has a part to play and so often we tend to see things that affect our environment and the skink is part of that biodiversity and has its own part to play."
Josie Tamate says eventually they'd like to come up with an indigenous Niuean name for the Olive Tree skink species.