The Galapagos Islands are a Very Special Place

The Galapagos Islands are a very special place in this world. The history of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution started on this dry and barren volcanic archipelago. There are animals found here and nowhere else on Earth. Surprisingly the animals are uninhibited by humans, such as travelers and give a visitor an amazing opportunity to see them up close.

There are a lot of species unique to the Galapagos. Some of those animals are: Blue Footed Boobies, Nazca Boobies, Red Footed Boobies, Red Billed Tropic Bird, Galapagos Shear Water, Lava Gull (the rarest gull in the world), Galapagos Dove, Lava Heron, Galapagos Hawk, Marine Iguana, Land Iguana, Galapagos Penguin, and many more animals. The animals have had to adapt to a life and environment with very little water.

These 13 islands are not lush paradises because they do not get much rain. It is also not lush because the islands are young and still growing from regular volcanic eruptions. Most islands are not inhabited by humans because there is not a lot of water and it is very rocky. The ones that are inhabited either get their water shipped in from the mainland of Ecuador, collect rain water, have a small spring, or a combination of all three.

Charles Darwin came to the Galapagos Islands for a month in the 1830’s on a boat called the Beagle. He came to the islands to collect animal specimens that led to his theory of evolution. The proof he found were the finches on the Galapagos. He found 13 different finches that all looked different and ate different things. At first he thought they were all different types of birds but when he got back to England he realized they were all finches. He concluded that each finch over time had adapted or evolved to fill a niche. That is how evolution came to be.

The animals have almost no predators on the Galapagos and therefore no fear of humans. So when you want to see an animal up close, go right ahead. You can literally get a foot away from the animals; it is the coolest thing in the world! This friendly trait is being endangered because of all the tourism. The guides do a good job of educating the visitors, but it is up to the world to keep that trait from becoming extinct.

Many animals of the Galapagos are endemic to specific islands such as the Red Footed Booby who is only on the island Genovesa. The Albatross stay at sea for most of their lives and land only on one piece of land in the whole world once a year to mate and nest, the island of Espanola.

Giant Tortoises also live in a very specific environment. They only like the highlands with mud holes, and some islands just aren’t high enough. The tortoises can live to be over 100 years old and with each year the shell gets smoother and smoother. They also have the very unusual characteristic of taking two months to digest their food. During World War II sailors in the area collected tortoises for food beginning a threat to their population. The park wants to increase the tortoise population, but has a hard time telling which island certain tortoises are from. They do not want two different types of tortoises mating with each other to create more hybrids.

The rarest animal on earth is at the Galapagos Islands on Santa Cruz at the Charles Darwin Research Center. He is a tortoise named “Lonesome George”, named because he is the last of his kind from the island of Pinta that erupted and killed all the tortoises except one. They are trying to have him mate with other females, but it has been unsuccessful. They think he might be infertile. I hope not.

The Galapagos Islands are a magical place of many animals. There are many reasons for me to go back and I hope to do so some day. I hope it is preserved forever and never changes.