Galápagos Islands (redirected from Espanola Island)

Galápagos Islands (gəlăp`əgōs) [Span.,=tortoises], archipelago and province (1990 pop. 9,785), 3,029 sq mi (7,845 sq km), Ecuador, in the Pacific Ocean c.650 mi (1,045 km) W of South America on the equator. There are 13 large islands and many smaller ones; Isabela (Albemarle; c.2,250 sq mi/5,827 sq km) is the largest. Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, on San Cristóbal, is the provincial capital.

The islands, created by the southeastward movement of the Nazca plate over a geological "hot spot" (see plate tectonics), are largely desolate lava piles. They have little vegetation or cultivable soil except on the high volcanic mountains whose upper slopes receive heavy rains from the prevailing trade winds and are mantled by dense vegetation. The climate is modified by the cool Humboldt Current. The Galápagos are famous for their wildlife. Although the gigantic (up to 500 lb/227 kg) land tortoises the islands are named for now face extinction, there are land and sea iguanas and hosts of unusual birds, such as the flightless cormorant, which exists nowhere else, and the world's northernmost penguins. Shore lagoons teem with marine life.

The islands were discovered in 1535 by the Spaniard Tomás de Bertanga and originally known as the Encantadas. Early travelers were astonished by the tameness of the animals. In 1832 Ecuador claimed the Galápagos. Charles Darwin visited the islands (1835) during the voyage of the Beagle, and gathered an impressive body of evidence there that was used later in support of his theory of natural selection. Although buccaneers, seeking food, made inroads on the fauna, real depredations did not begin until the arrival in the 19th cent. of the whalers and then the oilers, who killed the tortoises wholesale for food and oil.

During World War II the United States maintained an air base on the islands for the defense of the Panama Canal, and in 1967 a satellite tracking station was established. On the centennial (1959) of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species the Galápagos were declared a national park; the surrounding waters are a marine resources reserve. The Galápagos remain one of the few places in the world where naturalists can study living survivals of species arrested at various evolutionary stages. They also are an increasingly popular tourist spot.

Bibliography

See C. Darwin, The Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle (1840); B. Nelson, Galapagos: Islands of Birds (1968); I. W. Thornton, Darwin's Islands (1971); N. E. Hickin, Animal Life of the Galapagos (1980); J. Hickman, The Enchanted Islands: The Galapagos Discovered (1985).

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Galápagos Islands

 Spanish Archipiélago de Colón

Island group, eastern Pacific Ocean. A province (pop., 2001: 18,640) of Ecuador, the Galápagos are a group of 19 islands lying on the Equator 600 mi (1,000 km) west of the mainland. Their total land area of 3,093 sq mi (8,010 sq km) is scattered over 23,000 sq mi (59,500 sq km) of ocean. Visited by the Spanish in 1535, they were unclaimed when Ecuador took official possession of them in 1832. They became internationally famous after being visited in 1835 by British naturalist Charles Darwin; their unusual fauna, including the giant tortoise (Spanish galápago), contributed to his ideas on natural selection. Ecuador made the Galápagos a wildlife sanctuary in 1935 and a national park in 1959; in 1978 they were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.