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A volcanic hotspot, or scorching spot, formed by a crack in the Earth’s crust between two tectonic plates, Galapagos is an archipelago of volcanic islands and islets that rise from the Pacific Ocean 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) west of Ecuador. On a desktop globe, they look like freckles on the ocean’s cheek, entirely unexpected and unpredictable. They emerged from the sea just yesterday in geological time.
The Galapagos volcanic islands are unique because they have never been linked to the mainland.
Before humans intervened, the plants and animals that reached the island shoreline had to cross hundreds of miles of ocean. Mammals nearly never made it all the way there. Throughout millions of years, only a tiny rat survived. Reptiles rule the wildlife of Galapagos. How did they get there? Flash floods carried them off the continent’s river banks, and for weeks, they drifted on rafts of vegetation skipped by capricious ocean currents until they eventually disembarked, serendipitously impregnated.
These reptiles and many marine birds that descended onto these volcanic isles over millions of years adjusted to their surroundings. Their survival was based on the idea of “the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” as stated by Charles Darwin (in fact, this idea was said in the sub-title of the first edition of On The Origin of Species).
As a result, a land tortoise that was only a little larger than your foot grew to be as long as a six-year-old child; a cormorant that benefited from underwater fishing instead of flying lost its ability to fly; one species of finch arrived and became so adapted to its surroundings that it gave rise to thirteen species today; and a land iguana that underwent a mutation to become a marine iguana, which is only found in the Islands. The flora also changed and adjusted. For example, the scalesia tree, which can grow up to approximately 10 meters (30 feet) in some island highlands, is related to the little daisy.
The reason the Galapagos are unique is that we have wisely chosen to preserve them as such. May we always be so intelligent.
