The Santa Cruz Islands form an archipelago in Temotu Province, Solomon Islands. They lie approximately 250 miles (220 nmi; 400 km) to the southeast of the Solomon Islands archipelago, just north of the archipelago of Vanuatu and are considered part of the Vanuatu rain forests ecoregion. The term Santa Cruz Islands is sometimes used to encompass all the islands of Temotu Province, Solomon Islands.
Temotu (or Te Motu, literally "the island" in Polynesian) is the easternmost province of Solomon Islands. The province was formerly known as Santa Cruz Islands Province. It consists, essentially, of two chains of islands which run parallel to each other from the northwest to the southeast. Its area is 895 square kilometres (346 square miles).
Tuvalu (/tuːˈvɑːluː/ too-VAH-loo) is an island country in the Polynesian sub-region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean, about midway between Hawaii and Australia. It lies east-northeast of the Santa Cruz Islands (which belong to the Solomon Islands), northeast of Vanuatu, southeast of Nauru, south of Kiribati, west of Tokelau, northwest of Samoa and Wallis and Futuna, and north of Fiji.
Tuvalu is composed of three reef islands and six atolls spread out between the latitude of 5° and 10° south and between the longitude of 176° and 180°. They lie west of the International Date Line. The 2022 census determined that Tuvalu had a population of 10,643, making it the 194th most populous country, exceeding only Niue and the Vatican City in population. Tuvalu's total land area is 25.14 square kilometres (9.71 sq mi).
Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons, is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1,000 smaller islands in Melanesia, Oceania, to the north-east of the country of Australia. It is directly adjacent to the Autonomous Region of Bougainville to the west, Australia to the south-west, New Caledonia and Vanuatu to the south-east, Fiji, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna to the east, and the Federated States of Micronesia and Nauru to the north. It has a total area of 28,896 square kilometres (11,157 sq mi), and a population of 734,887 according to the official estimates for mid-2023. Its capital and largest city, Honiara, is located on the largest island, Guadalcanal. The country takes its name from the wider area of the Solomon Islands archipelago, which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (currently a part of Papua New Guinea), but excludes the Santa Cruz Islands.
The islands have been settled since at least some time between 30,000 and 28,800 BC, with later waves of migrants, notably the Lapita people, mixing and producing the modern indigenous Solomon Islanders population. In 1568, the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to visit them. Though not named by Mendaña, it is believed that the islands were called "the Solomons" by those who later received word of his voyage and mapped his discovery. Mendaña returned decades later, in 1595, and another Spanish expedition, led by Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, visited the Solomons in 1606.
8°00′S 159°00′E / 8.000°S 159.000°E
The Solomon Islands is an island group (archipelago) in the western South Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the Melanesian subregion and bioregion of Oceania and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. The many islands of the archipelago are distributed across the sovereign states of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. The largest island in the archipelago is Bougainville Island, which is a part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (currently a part of Papua New Guinea) along with Buka Island, the Nukumanu Islands, and a number of smaller nearby islands. Much of the remainder falls within the territory of Solomon Islands and include the atolls of Ontong Java, Sikaiana, the raised coral atolls of Bellona and Rennell, and the volcanic islands of Choiseul, Guadalcanal, Makira, Malaita, New Georgia, the Nggelas, Santa Isabel, and the Shortlands. The Santa Cruz Islands are not a part of the archipelago.
The Vanuatu rain forests are tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion which includes the islands of Vanuatu, as well as the Santa Cruz Islands group of the neighboring Solomon Islands. It is part of the Australasian realm, which includes neighboring New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands, as well as Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand.
The East Papuan languages is a defunct proposal for a family of Papuan languages spoken on the islands to the east of New Guinea, including New Britain, New Ireland, Bougainville, Solomon Islands, and the Santa Cruz Islands. There is no evidence that these languages are related to each other, and the Santa Cruz languages are no longer recognized as Papuan.
All but two of the starred languages below (Yélî Dnye and Sulka) make a gender distinction in their pronouns. Several of the heavily Papuanized Austronesian languages of New Britain do as well. This suggests a pre-Austronesian language area in the region.
The Polynesian starling (Aplonis tabuensis) is a species of starling of the family Sturnidae. It is found in the Samoan Islands, Fiji, Niue, Tonga, the Santa Cruz Islands and Wallis and Futuna. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and tropical moist forests. Various subspecies exist throughout this wide range, some darker in coloration and some lighter. Its call is a raspy buzz or rattle. Diet is fruit and insects.
On islands where the Samoan starling is present, the Polynesian starling is less conspicuous and keeps to the forest, feeding on harder, less edible fruit.