Floreana Island
After several days exploring the central, northern and western islands of the Galápagos, the Islander sailed round southern Isabela to spend our last couple of days exploring the south of the archipelago. These islands tend to be the oldest of the group, and are bathed in the cool yet relatively poor (after having travelled up the coasts of Chile and Peru) waters of the Humboldt Current. Our destination today was Floreana, the fifth largest of the group, and an island of relatively green and rolling hills, several offshore islets and a rich human history characterised by mysterious disappearances.
We visited one of few remnants of the old human history of the islands, the barrel at Post Office Bay (in use since whaling days in the late 18th century), then snorkelled amongst reef fish and sea lions in what just might be the best spot in the whole of Galápagos!
Floreana was one of only four islands that Darwin visited on his famous 5-week trip through the archipelago. It was the second on the Beagle itinerary, and was very significant to the young naturalist. As soon as he reached the Galápagos, in September 1835, he was struck by the close affinities of the flora and fauna of the islands with those of mainland South America. He mentally compared this finding with his observations in the Cape Verde Archipelago, and the biological affinities of that island group with its closest mainland, Africa; and reached what was for him a life-changing and inevitable conclusion: the inhabitants of these remote islands had obviously travelled to these destinations from the nearest mainland, and with their subsequent isolation from parent populations, had evolved into species found nowhere else!
It was over a dinner of barbecued tortoise with the vice-governor of a penal colony that was then settled on Floreana, that his companion made a very significant comment: he could tell which island a tortoise was from by the shape of its carapace. It was then that the young Darwin realised that on spreading from island to island, the species of the Galápagos has obtained yet further isolation, and the ancestral stock had radiated out to give rise to yet more new species!
Among the best examples of this archipelago speciation are the lava lizards of the Galápagos Islands. Reptiles are the dominant vertebrate group here, as they are supremely well-adapted to surviving the tough conditions of a trans-oceanic crossing. When the ancestral lizard finally reached its destination, it spread among several of the islands, and with time and isolation gradually evolved into a total of seven different species, each different to the ancestral species and each totally unique (endemic) to the Galápagos! The Floreana lava lizard, of which the colourful female is pictured here, is one of these endemic species found nowhere else in the world – an event to be celebrated; although in this part of the world it is an excuse that wears a little thin, as it happens every day!
After several days exploring the central, northern and western islands of the Galápagos, the Islander sailed round southern Isabela to spend our last couple of days exploring the south of the archipelago. These islands tend to be the oldest of the group, and are bathed in the cool yet relatively poor (after having travelled up the coasts of Chile and Peru) waters of the Humboldt Current. Our destination today was Floreana, the fifth largest of the group, and an island of relatively green and rolling hills, several offshore islets and a rich human history characterised by mysterious disappearances.
We visited one of few remnants of the old human history of the islands, the barrel at Post Office Bay (in use since whaling days in the late 18th century), then snorkelled amongst reef fish and sea lions in what just might be the best spot in the whole of Galápagos!
Floreana was one of only four islands that Darwin visited on his famous 5-week trip through the archipelago. It was the second on the Beagle itinerary, and was very significant to the young naturalist. As soon as he reached the Galápagos, in September 1835, he was struck by the close affinities of the flora and fauna of the islands with those of mainland South America. He mentally compared this finding with his observations in the Cape Verde Archipelago, and the biological affinities of that island group with its closest mainland, Africa; and reached what was for him a life-changing and inevitable conclusion: the inhabitants of these remote islands had obviously travelled to these destinations from the nearest mainland, and with their subsequent isolation from parent populations, had evolved into species found nowhere else!
It was over a dinner of barbecued tortoise with the vice-governor of a penal colony that was then settled on Floreana, that his companion made a very significant comment: he could tell which island a tortoise was from by the shape of its carapace. It was then that the young Darwin realised that on spreading from island to island, the species of the Galápagos has obtained yet further isolation, and the ancestral stock had radiated out to give rise to yet more new species!
Among the best examples of this archipelago speciation are the lava lizards of the Galápagos Islands. Reptiles are the dominant vertebrate group here, as they are supremely well-adapted to surviving the tough conditions of a trans-oceanic crossing. When the ancestral lizard finally reached its destination, it spread among several of the islands, and with time and isolation gradually evolved into a total of seven different species, each different to the ancestral species and each totally unique (endemic) to the Galápagos! The Floreana lava lizard, of which the colourful female is pictured here, is one of these endemic species found nowhere else in the world – an event to be celebrated; although in this part of the world it is an excuse that wears a little thin, as it happens every day!
