Santa Cruz Island
Academy Bay. Named for the ship from the California Academy of Science that spent time here in 1905-6. It is a reminder that the Galapagos Islands have been the focus of numerous scientific expeditions over the past century. Many of the collections taken have provided the foundation for research into the “why’s, how’s and who’s” of natural selection here in this archipelago of relatively small islands in the East Pacific Ocean.
The Charles Darwin Research Station has its own collection of organisms which are studied intensively by resident, as well as visiting, scientists. The collection has expanded gradually since the station was first established in 1964. Today, however, it was mainly the famous giant tortoises of Galápagos that took our attention. There are individuals from many of the islands here, each a separate subspecies, each of a different carapace shape. What is not immediately evident when watching the smallest giants, is that all island races look alike until they reach sexual maturity at around 15 to 20 years of age. It is only then that their upper carapaces begin to take on the distinctive shapes which we recognize as either “domed’ or “saddle-backed” or something in between. Today the miniature tortoises were scrambling like wind-up toys all over the feeding platform, food and family members with equal gusto…hoorah! Taro stem snippets!
The enclosure with six enormous male tortoises also showed six obviously separate races who had recently been served breakfast as well. By the time we arrived to see the largest of the large however, they had decimated their ration for the day (unexpected when one thinks of their reputation for sluggishness) and were bickering in a quiet, slow fashion, over the scraps and shreds left behind. It was here that we could see for the first time, up close and personal, why they were scientifically named Geochelone elephantopus, meaning “elephant-footed land tortoise.”
Academy Bay. Named for the ship from the California Academy of Science that spent time here in 1905-6. It is a reminder that the Galapagos Islands have been the focus of numerous scientific expeditions over the past century. Many of the collections taken have provided the foundation for research into the “why’s, how’s and who’s” of natural selection here in this archipelago of relatively small islands in the East Pacific Ocean.
The Charles Darwin Research Station has its own collection of organisms which are studied intensively by resident, as well as visiting, scientists. The collection has expanded gradually since the station was first established in 1964. Today, however, it was mainly the famous giant tortoises of Galápagos that took our attention. There are individuals from many of the islands here, each a separate subspecies, each of a different carapace shape. What is not immediately evident when watching the smallest giants, is that all island races look alike until they reach sexual maturity at around 15 to 20 years of age. It is only then that their upper carapaces begin to take on the distinctive shapes which we recognize as either “domed’ or “saddle-backed” or something in between. Today the miniature tortoises were scrambling like wind-up toys all over the feeding platform, food and family members with equal gusto…hoorah! Taro stem snippets!
The enclosure with six enormous male tortoises also showed six obviously separate races who had recently been served breakfast as well. By the time we arrived to see the largest of the large however, they had decimated their ration for the day (unexpected when one thinks of their reputation for sluggishness) and were bickering in a quiet, slow fashion, over the scraps and shreds left behind. It was here that we could see for the first time, up close and personal, why they were scientifically named Geochelone elephantopus, meaning “elephant-footed land tortoise.”
