After being back from my holidays in Quito I found this beautiful island at its best. We started in the morning with a very nice walk over the rocky terrain of Española. The weather was very pleasant; the sky was cloudy with the occasional refreshing "garua" (an exotic name for drizzle!). Most of us stayed on the island for more than three hours, enjoying not only wildlife but fantastic landscapes as well. Waved albatrosses, sea lions, marine iguanas, lava lizards, mockingbirds, Darwin finches, Nazca boobies and a very large colony of blue-footed boobies were performing a great show for us. In the afternoon everybody fully enjoyed the island in whichever way caught their fancy. Some were watching the underwater world whilst snorkeling and/or from the glass bottom boat. Some were swimming or strolling on the beach with the company of curious sea lions. The one thing we all had in common was that today we had a terrific day!
On the Galapagos Islands there are seven endemic species of lava lizards. The species found on Española is the largest of all, reaching up to 30 cm in length, that is double the length of the ones found on other islands. The lizard you see in today's picture is a beautiful female posing on top of a boulder. It is very easy to tell the female lava lizards apart from the males, as the former have a bright red throat while the latter have black and yellow throats and are much bigger. Vision is by far the most important sense for these endemic reptiles: an interesting fact is that the lava lizard's vision is most sensitive to red and yellow, which is perhaps why the females have such bright red throats when they are breeding.
