Last evening, The Jones left the Galápagos Islands and they are flying to Sant Boi de Llobregat where they're going to meet The Beans.
Both families have an important appointment tomorrow with Cambrigde University.
The Jones have watched some films during the flight. The Grandma has preferred black and white cinema because she loves Charles Chaplin but every member of the family has been able to choose her/his favourite films.
Eli Jones watches an amazing Playmobil Film about Egypt and its history while the rest of the family is sleeping. It's a long flight and tomorrow they must be relaxed and ready to enjoy a new experience.
Today, The Jones have spent a free day visiting Isabela Island and enjoying its views and its animals.
They have talked about some memories of their childhood and beautiful experiences that they remember with emotion.
The Grandma has remembered her favourite TV Programs and Peke, her old friend which lives in Masquefa, near Barcelona. Both of them are beautiful past memories.
The family has read the last chapter of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Cerro Azul is a shield volcano on the south western part of Isabela Island in the Galápagos Islands. At a height of 1,689 m it is the second highest peak in the Galápagos and due to its topographic prominence of over 1,500 m it is categorised as an ultra. The volcano is one of the most active in the Galápagos, with the last eruption between May and June 2008.
The Galápagos Islands are believed to be formed from a mantle plume which creates a hotspot of volcanic activity away from plate boundaries where islands then form above it, similar to process that has created the Hawaiian islands. Cerro Azul is at the edge of the upwelling with steep drop offs in the ocean to the West, while the sea is shallower to the east of Isabela Island.
The Galápagos Islands from the air
Cerro Azul is one of six coalescing volcanoes on Isabela Island: Ecuador, Wolf, Darwin, Alcedo, and Sierra Negra.
Cerro Azul is shaped like a large upturned soup bowl and like the other volcanoes on Isabela Island has a large caldera its one at 4x5 km across is one of the smallest. The caldera shows evidence of collapse following eruptive episodes and reaches a depth of 450 m to 650 m below the rim of the caldera, only Wolf Volcano in the Galápagos is as deep. The volcano is 34 by 22 km at maximum and has a volume of 172 km3. It has steep upper slopes of between 12 and 30 degrees. The shape of the volcano is affected by the sharp ocean drop off to the west where this flank of the volcano slopes steeply to the ocean.
Historical eruptions date back to 1932, but the volcano has had a number of active periods since then in 1940, 1943,1949, 1951, 1959, 1968, 1979, 1998 and most recently in 2008. It is estimated that the surface of the volcano is young, less than 5000 years old and it is estimated that the volcano is about 350,000 years old. The age of Cerro Azul is similar to Sierra Negra and Alcedo and their positioning is not believed to be related to plate movement over the magma plume but instead an interaction between the plume and the lithosphere.
Geochelone Nigra Vicina
The 2008 eruption began in May and included a fissure eruption on the south east flank of the volcano; the eruption in 1998 had also included fissure eruptions on this part of the volcano. The fissure eruptions resulted in lava flowing 10 km from the fissure. There was also an eruption within the caldera. A second fissure opened lower down the slope in early June.
Analysis of the lavas on Cerro Azul show a range of tholeiitic to alkalic basalts and are unlike the neighbouring Sierra Negra or Alcedo volcanoes.
A study published in 2006 showed that there was continuous expansion of the volcano prior to and after the eruption in 1998. This expansion would have been due to the emplacement of magma into the magma chamber.
The subspecies of giant tortoise on the island is Geochelone nigra vicina, this subspecies is dome shelled and has an overlapping range with the subspecies on the neighbouring Sierra Negra Volcano, Geochelone nigra guntheri, which is a saddleback tortoise. They Cerro Azul tortoises were not affected by the 2008 eruption although the 1998 eruption did force the National Park authorities to move tortoises by land and helicopter. Other tortoises were killed in that eruption, either from lava or associated fires.
Today, May 23, is World Turtle Day, sponsored yearly since 2000 by American Tortoise Rescue. The purpose is to bring attention to, and increase knowledge of and respect for, turtles and tortoises, and encourage human action to help them survive and thrive.
World Turtle Day is celebrated around the globe in a variety of ways, from dressing up as turtles or wearing green summer dresses, to saving turtles caught on highways, to research activities. Turtle Day lesson plans and craft projects encourage teaching about turtles in classrooms.
The Jones continue their trip in the Galápagos Islands. The family has visited the tortoises today, one of the most typical animals of these islands to celebrate this important day. They have rested on the grass and have revised the Reported Speech.
Later, they have read a new chapter of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The Galápagostortoise complex or Galápagos giant tortoise complex, Chelonoidis nigra and related species, are the largest living species of tortoise. Modern Galápagos tortoises can weigh up to 417 kg. Today, giant tortoises exist only on two remote archipelagos: the Galápagos Islands 1000 km due west of mainland Ecuador, and Aldabra in the Indian Ocean, 700 km east of Tanzania.
Galápagos Tortoises and some Jones
The Galápagos tortoises are native to seven of the Galápagos Islands, a volcanic archipelago about 1,000 km west of the Ecuadorian mainland. With lifespans in the wild of over 100 years, it is one of the longest-lived vertebrates.
A captive individual lived at least 170 years. Spanish explorers, who discovered the islands in the 16th century, named them after the Spanish galápago, meaning tortoise. Shell size and shape vary between populations. On islands with humid highlands, the tortoises are larger, with domed shells and short necks; on islands with dry lowlands, the tortoises are smaller, with saddleback shells and long necks.
Charles Darwin's observations of these differences on the second voyage of the Beagle in 1835, contributed to the development of his theory of evolution.
Tortoise numbers declined from over 250,000 in the 16th century to a low of around 3,000 in the 1970s. This decline was caused by overexploitation of the species for meat and oil, habitat clearance for agriculture, and introduction of non-native animals to the islands, such as rats, goats, and pigs.
Galápagos Tortoise and Claudia Jones
The extinction of most giant tortoise lineages is thought to have also been caused by predation by humans or human ancestors, as the tortoises themselves have no natural predators.
Tortoise populations on at least three islands have become extinct in historical times due to human activities. Specimens of these extinct taxa exist in several museums and also are being subjected to DNA analysis. Ten species of the original 15 survive in the wild; an 11th species, Chelonoidis abingdonii, had only a single known living individual, kept in captivity and nicknamed Lonesome George until his death in June 2012.
Conservation efforts, beginning in the 20th century, have resulted in thousands of captive-bred juveniles being released onto their ancestral home islands, and the total number of the species is estimated to have exceeded 19,000 at the start of the 21st century. Despite this rebound, the species as a whole is classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The Galápagos Islands were discovered in 1535, but first appeared on the maps, of Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius, around 1570. The islands were named Insulae de los Galopegos, Islands of the Tortoises in reference to the giant tortoises found there.
Galápagos Tortoises and some Jones
Initially, the giant tortoises of the Indian Ocean and those from the Galápagos were considered to be the same species. Naturalists thought that sailors had transported the tortoises there. In 1676, the pre-Linnaean authority Claude Perrault referred to both species as Tortue des Indes.
In 1783, Johann Gottlob Schneider classified all giant tortoises as Testudo indica, Indian tortoise. In 1812, August Friedrich Schweigger named them Testudo gigantea, gigantic tortoise. In 1834, André Marie Constant Duméril and Gabriel Bibron classified the Galápagos tortoises as a separate species, which they named Testudo nigrita, black tortoise.
All species of Galápagos tortoises evolved from common ancestors that arrived from mainland South America by overwater dispersal. Genetic studies have shown that the Chaco tortoise of Argentina and Paraguay is their closest living relative. The minimal founding population was a pregnant female or a breeding pair.
Survival on the 1000-km oceanic journey is accounted for because the tortoises are buoyant, can breathe by extending their necks above the water, and are able to survive months without food or fresh water. As they are poor swimmers, the journey was probably a passive one facilitated by the Humboldt Current, which diverts westwards towards the Galápagos Islands from the mainland. The ancestors of the genus Chelonoidis are believed to have similarly dispersed from Africa to South America during the Oligocene.
Claudia Jones and some Galápagos Tortoise
The closest living relative, though not a direct ancestor, of the Galápagosgiant tortoise is the Chaco tortoise, Chelonoidis chilensis, a much smaller species from South America.
The divergence between Chelodonis chilensis and Chelodonis nigra probably occurred 6–12 million years ago, an evolutionary event preceding the volcanic formation of the oldest modern Galápagos Islands 5 million years ago.
Mitochondrial DNA analysis indicates that the oldest existing islands, Española and San Cristóbal, were colonised first, and that these populations seeded the younger islands via dispersal in a stepping stone fashion via local currents. Restricted gene flow between isolated islands then resulted in the independent evolution of the populations into the divergent forms observed in the modern species. The evolutionary relationships between the species thus echo the volcanic history of the islands.
Joseph de Ca'th Lon has returned to Pinta Island, in the Galapagos Islands hometown of one of the oldest tortoises we had known: Lonesome George. Joseph met Lonesome George some years ago when he was visiting the Charles Darwin Research Station and today, he wants to remember his experience with this incredible animal.
Lonesome George (1910–June 24, 2012) was a male Pinta Island tortoise, Chelonoidis abingdonii, and the last known individual of the species. In his last years, he was known as the rarest creature in the world. George serves as a potent symbol for conservation efforts in the Galápagos Islands and throughout the world.
George was first seen on the island of Pinta on 1 November 1971 by Hungarian malacologist József Vágvölgyi. The island's vegetation had been devastated by introduced feral goats, and the indigenous Chelonoidis abingdonii population had been reduced to a single individual. It is thought that he was named after a character played by American actor George Gobel.
Lonesome George and Fausto Llerena
Relocated for his safety to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island, where he spent his life under the care of FaustoLlerena, whom the tortoise breeding center is named after.
It was hoped that more Pinta tortoises would be found. Unfortunately, no other Pinta tortoises were found. The Pinta tortoise was pronounced functionally extinct as George was in captivity. Until January 2011, George was penned with two females of the species Chelonoidis becki, from the WolfVolcano region of Isabela Island, in the hope his genotype would be retained in any resulting progeny. This species was then thought to be genetically closest to George's; however, any potential offspring would have been intergrades, not purebreds of the Pinta species.
In July 2008, George mated with one of his female companions. Thirteen eggs were collected and placed in incubators. On 11 November 2008, the CharlesDarwinFoundation reported 80% of the eggs showed weight loss characteristic of being inviable. By December 2008, the remaining eggs had failed to hatch and x-rays showed they were inviable.
On 23 July 2009, exactly one year after announcing George had mated, the Galápagos National Park announced one of George's female companions had laid a second clutch of five eggs. The park authority expressed its hope for the second clutch of eggs, which it said were in perfect condition. The eggs were moved to an incubator, but on 16 December, it was announced the incubation period had ended and the eggs were inviable, as was a third batch of six eggs laid by the other female.
Lonesome George and Joseph de Ca'th Lon
On 24 June 2012, at 8:00 am local time, Edwin Naula, Director of the Galápagos National Park, announced that Lonesome George had been found dead by his caretaker of 40 years, Fausto Llerena. Naula suspects that the cause of death was heart failure consistent with the end of the natural life cycle of a tortoise. A necropsy confirmed that he died of old age. The body of Lonesome George was frozen and shipped to the AmericanMuseum of Natural History in New York City to be preserved by taxidermists. The preservation work was carried out by the museum's taxidermist George Dante, with input from scientists.
In November 2012, in the journal Biological Conservation, researchers reported identifying 17 tortoises that are partially descended from the same subspecies as Lonesome George, leading them to speculate that related purebred individuals of that subspecies may still be alive.
In December 2015 it was reported that the discovery of another species Chelonoidis donfaustoi by Yale researchers had a 90% DNA match to that of the Pinta tortoise and that scientists believe this could possibly be used to resurrect the species.
