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Native vegetation in many parts of the Galapagos Islands has been largely destroyed by introduced animals such goats and donkeys and invasive plants like wild blackberry and quinine. As a result, large swaths of once healthy ecosystems have either been turned into desert or have become overgrown with foreign and destructive vegetation.
When most people think of the Galapagos Islands, they understandably envision its remarkable and iconic animal life; massive lumbering tortoises, prehistoric looking marine iguanas, comical blue-footed boobies, and the like. But the plant life of the Galapagos is no less intriguing and obviously a critically important element in the unique ecosystems of the islands.
What happens when two Galapagos giant tortoises meet on a narrow pathway going in opposite directions? Thanks to this video from WWF we know the answer to this intriguing question. Like many other species, they establish which animal is dominant and go from there.
And now for some good news. Conservationists announced yesterday that the Espanola giant tortoise has been brought back from the edge of extinction. There were only 14 of them left on the island in the 1960s. Today there are around 1,000.
Try to picture Charles Darwin. What do you see? If you’re like most people you’re probably envisioning a black and white image of a serious looking and somewhat portly older gentleman with an unruly long white beard. If you’re like me, you might even be picturing Karl Marx by mistake.
The discovery of a new species is a pretty rare event in most parts of the world. Not so in the Galapagos Islands, it seems.
In January, marine scientists from the Charles Darwin Foundation captured and tagged several tiger sharks near the Galapagos Islands for the first time ever. The goal of the project was to gain a better understanding of the sharks’ migratory movements in an effort to improve conservation efforts around the world.
The non-profit WildAid is working on an ambitious, multi-year plan to overhaul the cargo handling and quarantine procedures between mainland South America and the Galapagos Islands in order to prevent the arrival of potentially harmful new invasive species within the archipelago.
There are plenty of benches in the Galapagos Islands, but very few places to actually sit. This is because there are few things that a Galapagos sea lion loves more than lazing away the day on a nice hard bench. And as this video shows, it doesn’t matter if you were there first.
If you can’t make it down to the Galapagos Islands anytime soon, Google Map’s Galapagos Street View is a cost effective way to get a sense of what it’s like to walk amongst nesting boobies and snorkel with playful sea lions.
A minor storm is brewing in Ecuador about where the taxidermy of iconic Galapagos tortoise Lonesome George should wind up. George, who died unexpectedly in 2012, was the last Pinta Island tortoise and was often referred to as “the rarest creature in the world”.
If you are lucky enough to visit the Galapagos Islands, chances are you’ll take a water taxi at some point during your visit. They are the small boats, usually about 20-feet long, that transfer passengers from cruise boats to shore, from one part of an island to another, and even from island to island.
