Genovesa Island
A theme this week has been animal behaviour, thanks to a series of two talks given by Carlton College guest lecturer Matt Rand. He explored the meaning of the word “behaviour” with us, and then looked at many different types of behaviour found in the animal kingdom, including thermoregulatory behaviour, territoriality, courtship and mating behaviour and more. Although not referring strictly to the Galápagos, what place on earth could be better than this to learn about behaviour, as on each and every walk we take on shore we are surrounded by it wherever we look – and not the fleeing behaviour we encounter everywhere else as top predators?
The inhabitants of these magical islands survived incredible odds to make it here and then survive, but once they did, they had a whole archipelago to themselves to exploit as they could. Oceanic islands display a disharmonic distribution of both flora and fauna (overrepresentation of some groups of plants and animals, such as composites and reptiles, under representation of others) that has allowed all kinds of unusual features and behaviours to evolve among species that did make it.
Most prominent among the latter is the enchanting ecological innocence displayed by all creatures – they have evolved for so long without significant predators that they are oblivious to our passage through their habitat, and continue with exactly what they were doing before we appeared on the scene! What a strange phenomenon for we humans who are used to being feared – in GGalápagos it is easy to feel as though one has entered a natural history documentary in which one is wandering like an invisible ghost.
Genovesa is a wonderful example of this, particularly at this time of the year when that most spectacular of sea birds, the frigate bird, is at the height of its courting season.
Male and female, such as the couple pictured here, show remarkable sexual dimorphism, which as we learned today is a marked difference between the sexes that extends all the way to differences in the brain itself. In his attempt to find a mate, the male chooses the best possible future nesting site (location, location!), and gets ready to display all his magnificence to attract the bored-looking females flying around overhead. He inflates his crimson gular sac, which he shakes from side to side whilst calling out to a potential mate. At the same time, he has extended the most impressive feature of frigate birds: their seven-foot wingspan than enables them to outmanoeuvre any other bird in the sky.
The females will land nearby to check out their potential suitor, before making an informed decision and either settle in for the mating ritual or depart and continue being courted from below.
A theme this week has been animal behaviour, thanks to a series of two talks given by Carlton College guest lecturer Matt Rand. He explored the meaning of the word “behaviour” with us, and then looked at many different types of behaviour found in the animal kingdom, including thermoregulatory behaviour, territoriality, courtship and mating behaviour and more. Although not referring strictly to the Galápagos, what place on earth could be better than this to learn about behaviour, as on each and every walk we take on shore we are surrounded by it wherever we look – and not the fleeing behaviour we encounter everywhere else as top predators?
The inhabitants of these magical islands survived incredible odds to make it here and then survive, but once they did, they had a whole archipelago to themselves to exploit as they could. Oceanic islands display a disharmonic distribution of both flora and fauna (overrepresentation of some groups of plants and animals, such as composites and reptiles, under representation of others) that has allowed all kinds of unusual features and behaviours to evolve among species that did make it.
Most prominent among the latter is the enchanting ecological innocence displayed by all creatures – they have evolved for so long without significant predators that they are oblivious to our passage through their habitat, and continue with exactly what they were doing before we appeared on the scene! What a strange phenomenon for we humans who are used to being feared – in GGalápagos it is easy to feel as though one has entered a natural history documentary in which one is wandering like an invisible ghost.
Genovesa is a wonderful example of this, particularly at this time of the year when that most spectacular of sea birds, the frigate bird, is at the height of its courting season.
Male and female, such as the couple pictured here, show remarkable sexual dimorphism, which as we learned today is a marked difference between the sexes that extends all the way to differences in the brain itself. In his attempt to find a mate, the male chooses the best possible future nesting site (location, location!), and gets ready to display all his magnificence to attract the bored-looking females flying around overhead. He inflates his crimson gular sac, which he shakes from side to side whilst calling out to a potential mate. At the same time, he has extended the most impressive feature of frigate birds: their seven-foot wingspan than enables them to outmanoeuvre any other bird in the sky.
The females will land nearby to check out their potential suitor, before making an informed decision and either settle in for the mating ritual or depart and continue being courted from below.
