Fig. 3: Paleogeographic maps of the eastern Caribbean region during the Cenozoic.

A Late Oligocene—early Miocene paleogeography; B the late Eocene—early Oligocene paleogeography. The maps are built upon the kinematic scenarios at 20 (Fig. 2B) and 35 (Fig. 2C) million years, respectively. The light green areas indicate regions where geological data are sparse, and where either the presence of land or very shallow seaways is plausible. The paleogeography of the Lesser Antilles and the Eastern Greater Antilles is adapted from Cornée et al.³³. For Central America, the Caribbean plate interior, the Greater Antilles, northwestern South America, the Leeward Antilles, and the Aves Ridge, we combined the paleogeographic maps of Iturralde-Vinent and MacPhee^8,18 and Ali and Hedges¹⁷ and of Pindell et al.²⁵ for northeastern South America. The list of South American colonizer species is detailed in Fig. 1.