Addendum: Notes on Wildlife

The Galapagos is a unique and fascinating place, although there is not the diversity of wildlife that one might expect, partly because of the long distance from the mainland. The islands were originally formed from volcanoes, rather than having broken off from a larger continent, in contrast to many other islands around the world.There are few mammals endemic to the islands (2 bats and rice rats, none of which we saw) other than marine mammals, while reptiles can travel long distances without food and water, which is why they dominate today. Much of the islands are National Park lands, and inaccessible to visitors, except for researchers (which is as it should be!). Thus we were privileged to visit only limited areas. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the opportunity to see what we could. There were Galapagos sea lions everywhere, sunning on the black rocks, lounging on piers and abandoned (and unabandoned) boats moored in the water, frolicking in the water, and, most delightful, we observed a mother teaching her pups to swim, by pushing them off the rocks into shallow water, which they resist, and herding them out through the water until they must swim their way back to the rocks, where she starts again. She keeps a close eye on them to keep them from drowning, we’re told. We also saw marine iguanas everywhere, in many sizes. There are two major groups of giant tortoises, defined by their shell shape, dome or saddleback, based on whether they eat from the ground (the former) or have to reach up for vegetation (the latter). We saw 3 or 4 of the 16 varieties of finches, which of course, along with the tortoises, served as Darwin’s inspiration for the theory of evolution, as they started from a common ancestor but adapted to the islands’ varying environments. We also saw brown pelicans, petrels, royal terns, black-winged stilts, American oystercatchers, Galapagos mockingbirds, familiar herons and egrets, and smooth-billed anis. We saw flamingos, which have a breeding population on the islands. Sadly, on our bike trip we passed a frigate bird with a broken wing, struggling on the side of the path, probably eventually to become food for fish, raptors, reptiles, and/or insects. We saw a variety of cacti, which again vary not only from island to island but also in different zones on the same island. One interesting feature of island flora is that most endemic flowering plants have yellow flowers – this is thought to be connected to pollinators who are attracted to yellow.