THE MARINE IGUANA OF THE GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS

The Jones with some iguanas

This morning, The Jones have decided to visit the beautiful beaches of Santa Cruz Island. After their meeting with some scientists who explained them the last researching in the islands, the family has decided to go to the beach to relax, to study some English and to discover the wonderful world of the marine iguana.

The family has revised The Passive in Present and Past Simple and have read another new chapter of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Finally, the family has been talking about the difficulties of working in some environments, the bureaucratic rules that difficult our work and the obsession of a great part of the society of getting as money as they without any kind of ethics or responsibility. 

More information: The Passive-Present Simple & The Passive-Past Simple

The Grandma has offered her opinion about her lifestyle where money is something necessary to survive in a capitalist system but it mustn't be the centre of our lives, a place destined for real important things like family, friends and health. She has been also talking about the importance of reading the documents from the beginning to the end and has remembered her old times studying phonetics with some spectrograms, an incredible tool to identified voices, sound and messages.

Download The Passive

This afternoon, the family is enjoying the Ecuadorian beaches and they are listening incredible and amazing stories told by Claudia Jones who is an expert in The Galápagos Islands and who has invited the family to taste some of the best Ecuadorian chocolates. Thanks a lot, Claudia!

The marine iguana or Amblyrhynchus cristatus, also known as the Galápagos marine iguana, is a species of iguana found only on the Galápagos Islands that has the ability, unique among modern lizards, to forage in the sea, making it a marine reptile. 

This iguana feeds almost exclusively on algae and large males dive to find this food source, while females and smaller males feed during low tide in the intertidal zone. They mainly live in colonies on rocky shores where they warm after visiting the relatively cold water or intertidal zone, but can also be seen in marshes, mangrove and beaches.

More information: Galápagos Conservation

Marine iguanas vary in appearance between the different islands and several subspecies are recognized. Although relatively large numbers remain and it is locally common, this protected species is considered threatened.

Joaquín Jones is diving in the Galápagos Sea

Its generic name, Amblyrhynchus, is a combination of two Greek words, Ambly- from Amblus (ἀμβλυ) meaning blunt and rhynchus (ρυγχος) meaning snout. Its specific name is the Latin word cristatus meaning crested, and refers to the low crest of spines along the animal's back.

Researchers theorize that land iguanas, genus Conolophus, and marine iguanas evolved from a common ancestor since arriving on the islands from Central or South America, presumably by rafting. The land and marine iguanas of the Galápagos form a clade, and the nearest relative of this Galápagos clade are the Ctenosaura iguanas of Mexico and Central America. The marine iguana diverged from the land iguanas some 8–10 million years ago, which is older than any of the extant Galápagos islands. 

It is therefore thought that the ancestral species inhabited parts of the volcanic archipelago that are now submerged. The two species remain mutually fertile in spite of being assigned to distinct genera, and they occasionally hybridize where their ranges overlap, resulting in the so-called hybrid iguana of South Plaza Island.

More information: World Wild Life

My favorite animal on the Galapagos is the Galapagos Marine Iguana. The first rule of iguana-dom is that iguanas hate the water, 

yet somehow, these poor iguanas landed there and had to figure it out. 

Michael Bastian

THE JONES VISIT THE CHARLES DARWIN FOUNDATION

Some Jones at Charles Darwin Research Station

Today, The Jones are visiting Puerto Ayora in Santa Cruz Island, one of The Galápagos Islands. They are in the island to visit The Charles Darwin Foundation and meet the scientists who are working here.

Santa Cruz Island is one of the Galápagos Islands with an area of 986 km2 and a maximum altitude of 864 metres. Situated in the center of the archipelago, Santa Cruz is the second largest island after Isabela. Its capital is Puerto Ayora, the most populated urban centre in the islands. 

On Santa Cruz there are some small villages, whose inhabitants work in agriculture and cattle raising. This island is a large dormant volcano. It is estimated that the last eruptions occurred around a million and a half years ago. There is a gigantic lava tunnel that is over 2000 meters long on the island that many tourists visit and walk through. 

More information: Ecuador Volunteer

As a testimony to its volcanic history there are two big holes formed by the collapse of a magma chamber: Los Gemelos, or The Twins. Named after the Holy Cross, its English name, Indefatigable, was given after a British vessel HMS Indefatigable. Santa Cruz hosts the largest human population in the archipelago at the town of Puerto Ayora, with a total of 12,000 residents on the island. 

Claudia Jones in Tortuga Bay

Tortuga Bay is located on the Santa Cruz Island, a short walk from center of Puerto Ayora where you can view marine iguanas, birds, galapagos crabs and a natural mangrove where you can spot white tip reef sharks and the gigantic galápagos tortoise.

The Charles Darwin Foundation was founded in 1959, under the auspices of UNESCO and the World Conservation Union. The Charles Darwin Research Station serves as headquarters for The Foundation, and is used to conduct scientific research and promote environmental education.

Lonesome George at the Charles Darwin Research Station, estimated to be over 100 years old at his death in 2012.

More information: Trip Advisor

The Charles Darwin Foundation is based in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos.

Charles Darwin

The Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS) is a biological research station operated by the Charles Darwin Foundation. It is located on the shore of Academy Bay in the village of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island in the Galápagos Islands, with satellite offices on Isabela and San Cristóbal islands.

In Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island, Ecuadorian and foreign scientists work on research and projects for conservation of the Galápagos terrestrial and marine ecosystems. 

The Research Station, established in 1959 and dedicated in 1964, has a natural history interpretation center and also carries out educational projects in support of conservation of the Galápagos Islands, and in support of external researchers visiting the islands to conduct field work.

More information: Charles Darwin Foundation

The objectives of the CDRS is to conduct scientific research and environmental education for conservation. The Station has a team of over a hundred scientists, educators, volunteers, research students, and support staff from all over the world.Scientific research and monitoring projects are conducted at the CDRS in conjunction and cooperation with its chief partner, the Galápagos National Park Service (GNPS), which functions as the principal government authority in charge of conservation and natural resource issues in the Galápagos.

The work of the CDRS has as its main objectives:

-To promote, facilitate, design, and implement the scientific investigation necessary for the understanding of biological principles, better understanding of ecosystems, and adequate management of the islands’ natural resources.

Some Jones at Charles Darwin Research Station

-To advise the Ecuadorian authorities on the subject of conservation and management of natural resources in the Galápagos Islands.

-To collaborate with Ecuadorian institutions on the implementation of programs involved in scientific investigation and education.

-To contribute to the development of scientific and technical personnel from Ecuador who are specialized in natural sciences and natural resource management.

-To contribute and collaborate on educational programs related to the conservation of the islands.

-To compile the results of the scientific investigations and the other activities of the organization and to disseminate this information regionally, nationally, and internationally.

More information: Galápagos Conservation

 I have called this principle, 

y which each slight variation, 

if useful, is preserved, 

by the term of Natural Selection. 

Charles Darwin

THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, CHARLES DARWIN'S PARADISE

The Jones have just arrived to the Galápagos Islands

The Jones have just arrived to the Galápagos Islands in Equator. The family is going to their residences to rest a little after a long flight from Tokyo.

The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed on either side of the Equator in the Pacific Ocean surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, 906 km west of continental Ecuador. The islands are known for their vast number of endemic species and were studied by Charles Darwin during the second voyage of HMS Beagle, as his observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection.

The Galápagos Islands and their surrounding waters form the Galápagos Province of Ecuador, the Galápagos National Park, and the Galápagos Marine Reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of slightly over 25,000.

More information: Galápagos

The first recorded visit to the islands happened by chance in 1535, when Fray Tomás de Berlanga, the Bishop of Panamá, was surprised with this undiscovered land during a voyage to Peru to arbitrate in a dispute between Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro. De Berlanga eventually returned to the Spanish Empire and described the conditions of the islands and the animals that inhabited them. The group of islands was shown and named in Abraham Ortelius's atlas published in 1570. 

Charles Darwin with a local tortoise

The first crude map of the islands was made in 1684 by the buccaneer Ambrose Cowley, who named the individual islands after some of his fellow pirates or after British royalty and noblemen. These names were used in the authoritative navigation charts of the islands prepared during the Beagle survey under captain Robert Fitzroy, and in Darwin's popular book The Voyage of the Beagle. 

The new Republic of Ecuador took the islands from Spanish ownership in 1832, and subsequently gave them official Spanish names. The older names remained in use in English language publications, including Herman Melville's The Encantadas of 1854.

More information: The Encantadas by Herman Melville

The islands are located in the eastern Pacific Ocean, 973 km off the west coast of South America. The closest land mass is that of mainland Ecuador, the country to which they belong, 926 km to the east.

Charles Darwin arriving to the Galápagos Islands

The islands are found at the coordinates 1°40'N–1°36'S, 89°16'–92°01'W. 

Straddling the equator, islands in the chain are located in both the northern and southern hemispheres, with Volcán Wolf and Volcán Ecuador on Isla Isabela being directly on the equator. Española Island, the southernmost islet of the archipelago, and Darwin Island, the northernmost one, are spread out over a distance of 220 km. The group consists of 18 main islands, 3 smaller islands, and 107 rocks and islets. The islands are located at the Galápagos Triple Junction. 

The archipelago is located on the Nazca Plate, a tectonic plate, which is moving east/southeast, diving under the South American Plate at a rate of about 6.4 cm per year. It is also atop the Galápagos hotspot, a place where the Earth's crust is being melted from below by a mantle plume, creating volcanoes. The first islands formed here at least 8 million and possibly up to 90 million years ago.

More information: UNESCO

While the older islands have disappeared below the sea as they moved away from the mantle plume, the youngest islands, Isabela and Fernandina, are still being formed, with the most recent volcanic eruption in April 2009 where lava from the volcanic Island Fernandina started flowing both towards the island's shoreline and into the center caldera.

Charles Darwin exploring the island

Charles Darwin was born on 12 February 1809 and is seen today as the father of the theory of evolution. His work as a naturalist, geologist and scientist led to many books and writings on evolution and his theory of how different species originated from common ancestors is still accepted.

Darwin’s extensive research that resulted in the development of his theories all started on the Galápagos Islands. Even though he did not realize it at the time, the discovery that he made here would make him and the islands world famous.

Darwin was invited on a two-year voyage on the English sea going vessel, the Beagle, and saw the invitation as an opportunity to explore different countries and the geological secrets they hold. The Beagle’s voyage mission was to explore harbor approaches, and this took them to the islands. It was while they moved from one island to the next in the Galápagos Islands archipelago that Darwin noticed that each island had its own unique form of mocking bird.

Moer information: National Geographic

Contrary to popular belief, he did not immediately come to the theory of evolution by seeing this, as he believed that the sample species he collected from the islands was a collection of finches, blackbirds and gross-beaks. 

Charles Darwin in the Galápagos Islands

Only after his return to London and by presenting his findings to ornithologist John Gould, did he learn that he had collected approximately fourteen species of birds that were related to the finch. These species would become known as Darwin’s Finches. Even though they all looked similar in size, there were differences in food choices as seen in the shape of their beaks, coloration, behavior and even in their song.

On understanding and realizing that various species and kinds of birds can belong to or originate from one species, Darwin began his quest for answers. It is through these findings that the natural selection theory, an easily understandable description of evolution, was written and published by Darwin. 

His book, The Origin of Species, would immortalize himself and the Galápagos Islands. His legacy, as the first geologist on the islands is still seen in the conservation efforts of the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Charles Darwin Research Station, created to preserve the unique beauty of the Galápagos Islands.

More information: Lonely Planet

The Galápagos Islands are probably 

the most famous wildlife-watching 

destination in the world. 

And no wonder, it's almost impossible 

to exaggerate the sheer spectacle 

of the place that provided inspiration 

for Charles Darwin's ground-breaking 

theory of natural selection.

Mark Carwardine