giant tortoises

fire ant

Fowler’s snouted tree frog

invasive blackberry

Forests of the Scalesia

Flightless cormorants

fur seals

Sea lions

Galápagos penguins

coral ecosystems in the Galápagos,

A fish the length of a pencil, the Galápagos damsel, was never seen again.

El Niño,

the intersection of three ocean currents

These trees typically grow in dense stands of the same species and age. They die around the same time, and then a new generation of seedlings grows up in the same place.

The iguanas are hugely affected as a result, but quite remarkably the iguana’s body reacts by shrinking in size until food sources increase, as smaller bodies require less energy. There is no other known case in the world in which an adult vertebrate is able to shrink, particularly in which it does so repeatedly. Scientists believe that the iguana actually consumes its bones to stay alive, resulting in a reduced skeleton.

An irregular phenomenon called El Nino occurs once in 5-6 years. The water temperature rises, which raises air temperature and bring plentiful precipitation along the continental coast of South America and the equator. The Galapagos lie right in the middle of El Nino.

The Galapagos Islands are influenced by three ocean currents. The cold South Equatorial Current flows westward into Galapagos waters, which comes from the Peruvian Current (the Humboldt Current) that runs north along the continent of South America and turns west near the equator. The warm Panama Current runs in from north. In addition, the deep sea Cromwell Current runs from the west and is a source of upwelling when it hits the islands to bring nutrients from the bottom up to the surface layer.

The Galápagos are an archipelago of 20 islands, originally called the Enchanted Islands, and made famous by Charles Darwin, who visited the islands in 1835, later formulating his theory of evolution based on his trip.