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Ecuador’s Navy announced the start of a campaign to protect the Galápagos Islands from the predatory practices of Chinese illegal fishing vessels that have, for years, endangered their maritime biodiversity. The announcement comes shortly after the conclusion of Galapex III, a series of multinational naval training exercises designed to fight illegal fishing that the Ecuadorian Navy hosted from June 23 to July 9. The navies of the United States, Canada, South Korea, Italy, Spain, and neighboring nations — such as Colombia and Peru — participated. “The problem is that the number of foreign fishing vessels reaches a point where they...

A new species of giant tortoise has been discovered in the Galapagos after DNA testing found animals living on one island had not yet been recorded, Ecuador's environment ministry said. Researchers compared the genetic material of tortoises currently living on San Cristobal with bones and shells collected in 1906 from a cave in the island's highlands and found them to be different. The 20th-century explorers never reached the lowlands northeast of the island, where the animals live today, and as a result, almost 8,000 tortoises correspond to a different lineage to what was previously thought. "The species of giant...

The top of Darwin's Arch, the famous natural stone archway in the northern Galapagos Islands, has crashed into the waves, according to news reports. The arch, located less than 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) off the steep and rocky coast of Darwin Island, collapsed as "a consequence of natural erosion," on May 17, the Ecuador Ministry of Environment and Water wrote in Spanish on Twitter. The natural arch was named for the English biologist Charles Darwin, who studied evolution in the Galapagos during his voyage aboard the HMS Beagle in the early 1830s. Now that the arch's top is gone, one...

Analysing microscopic crystals in the basalt and ejected material of two volcanoes in the Galápagos, the researchers discovered hidden systems of magma that are not so simple or predictable after all. Even though the Wolf and Fernandina volcanoes in the Galápagos have seemingly spewed the same basaltic lava for their entire existence, the new findings suggest they are sitting on a chemically diverse system of molten rocks, some of which have the potential to set into motion explosive activity. Just because these volcanoes appear boring on the surface doesn't mean the monotony will continue forever, the researchers say. While the...

Stretching for miles across the horizon, a vast armada of Chinese fishing boats trawl the pristine waters close to the Galapagos Islands. Ostensibly fishing squid, the real target for the 265-strong fleet are sharks to serve the appetite for expensive fin soup, costing up to £350 a bowl, sold in markets across China and Hong Kong. Night and day, the vessels – many the size of a football pitch – ransack the seabed, scooping up not only whale and hammerhead sharks but other species including turtles and birds.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) -- Scientists in Ecuador's Galapagos islands are hoping to restore a tortoise species believed extinct since the 1800s. The Chelonoidis elephantopus lived on Floreana Island and was captured by seamen in large numbers for food during long journeys across the Pacific. The species is thought to have disappeared shortly after Charles Darwin's celebrated visit to the treasured archipelago. But a group of international scientists who collected 1,700 blood samples from tortoises on Isabel Island farther north during a research expedition in 2012 made a surprising discovery: 80 had genetic traces of the lost species. "This is a...

Explanation: A spectacular geocentric celestial event of 2005 was a rare hybrid eclipse of the Sun -- a total or an annular eclipse could be seen depending on the observer's location. For Fred Espenak, aboard a gently swaying ship within the middle of the Moon's shadow track about 2,200 kilometers west of the Galapagos, the eclipse was total, the lunar silhouette exactly covering the bright solar disk for a few brief moments. His camera captured a picture of totality revealing the extensive solar corona and prominences rising above the Sun's edge. But for Stephan Heinsius, near the end of the...

    Summer 2000 (8.2) Scandinavian Ancestry Tracing Roots to Azerbaijan by Thor Heyerdahl Above: Thor Heyerdahl with Peruvian children who still construct traditional boats made of reeds, the principle material that enabled early migrations on trans-oceanic voyages. Courtesy: Thor Heyerdahl. Archeologist and historian Thor Heyerdahl, 85, has visited Azerbaijan on several occasions during the past two decades. Each time, he garners more evidence to prove his tantalizing theory - that Scandinavian ancestry can be traced to the region now known as Azerbaijan. Heyerdahl first began forming this hypothesis after visiting Gobustan, an ancient cave dwelling found 30 miles ...

Long before TV's campy Fantasy Island, the isolation of island communities has touched an exotic and magical core in us. Darwin's fascination with the Galapagos island chain and the evolution of its plant and animal life is just one example. Think of the extensive lore surrounding island-bred creatures like Komodo dragons, dwarf elephants, and Hobbit-sized humans. Conventional wisdom has it that they -- and a horde of monster-sized insects -- are all products of island evolution. But are they? Dr. Shai Meiri of Tel Aviv University's Department of Zoology says "yes," they are a product of evolution, but nothing more...

“Darwin’s finches” are a variety of small black birds that were observed and collected by British naturalist Charles Darwin during his famous voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle in the early 1800s. Years later, Darwin argued that subtle variations in their beak sizes supported his concept that all organisms share a common ancestor (a theory known as macroevolution). The finches, whose technical name is Geospiza, have since become classic evolutionary icons...

Dec 2, 2009 — Field geologists have revisited a site Darwin visited on the voyage of the Beagle, and found that he incorrectly interpreted what he found.  A large field of erratic boulders in Tierra del Fuego that have become known as “Darwin’s Boulders” were deposited by a completely different process than he thought.  The modern team, publishing in the Geological Society of America’s December issue of the GSA Today,1 noted that “Darwin’s thinking was profoundly influenced by Lyell’s obsession with large-scale, slow, vertical movements of the crust, especially as manifested in his theory of submergence and ice rafting to...

HUNTSVILLE, AL, Nov. 25 Christian Newswire -- Two creation films called "inappropriate" were denied the opportunity to be shown in government facilities this week--which marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species". While the intelligent design film "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record" has not been granted permission for a showing in California, "The Mysterious Islands", a new 90-minute Vision Forum film that challenges Darwin's evolution by taking audiences back to engage the enchanted Galapagos Islands, has enjoyed a victory and will premiere as previously scheduled tonight, Nov. 25, at 6:30 PM, at...

Scientists have watched as a new species is “born”—or is that “evolved”?—on one of the Galapagos Islands, home of Darwin’s famous finches...

The Galapagos giant tortoise and other iconic wildlife are facing a new threat from disease, as some of the islands' mosquitoes develop a taste for reptile blood. Scientists from the University of Leeds, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Galapagos National Park have discovered that while its mainland ancestors prefer the blood of mammals and the occasional bird, the Galapagos form of the black salt marsh mosquito (Aedes taeniorhynchus) has shifted its behaviour to feed mainly on reptiles – primarily Galapagos giant tortoises and marine iguanas. The findings raise fears that these changes could devastate the islands' unique...

The Galapagos turtle in this video is singing the song; River of Life and this song is sung by o7jimmy!

It was May 29 and I was coming through Houston on the way back from the Galapagos—kind of long-way-around routing, but what the hey. I’d gotten up at three a.m. in Quito to take the flight out so I was running on coffee and hope. My flight, Continental 2099, left at 2:20. I was ready to get back to Guadalajara. Swarm aboard the Embraer, fasten seat belt, haul out book. Normally the stews go through the usual about overhead bins, seatbelts, and the rest. They have to do it, everybody has heard it a thousand times, but the crew is...

QUITO, Ecuador - A volcano on the largest of the Galapagos Islands erupted for the third straight day Tuesday, but experts said it didn't threaten villagers on the island or the super-sized tortoises that gave the remote archipelago its name. Oscar Carvajal, chief technician of the Galapagos National Park on Isabela island, said tortoises and land iguanas were not threatened because the lava flows were down the northeast slopes of Sierra Negra volcano where there were no animal populations. "The lava flows have not affected the species because they are on the other side. There are no problems with tortoises...

USFQ (Universidad San Francisco de Quito) hosted the World Summit on Evolution from June 9-12 at the island of San Cristóbal in the Galapagos Archipelago. This one-of-a-kind conference brought together the world’s most prominent biologists to discuss and debate what is evolution, the different fields of study, and what are the future horizons for evolution biology. This conference was unique because it compromised all subfields of evolution from microbes to humans, plus participants came from all around the world (more than 20 countries represented). The format was also special because it consisted of a presentation given by a speaker followed...

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador (Reuters) - They may not be cute like the sea lions that waddle on sandy beaches or the once-endangered giant tortoises featured in campaigns to conserve Ecuador's exotic Galapagos Islands. But sharks, which draw tourists and scuba divers, are increasingly a cause celebre in Galapagos. Environmentalists and the tourism industry are lobbying for more protection for sharks from fishermen who see a lucrative business in exporting their prized fins. Shark fishing is illegal in Galapagos. But that doesn't stop small motorboats from cruising the islands' Pacific Ocean waters at night to hunt the giant fish, whose fins...

ESPANOLA ISLAND, Ecuador (Reuters) - The squat, brown owl sits immobile under the lee of a lava rock and stares unblinkingly as a dozen camera-toting tourists scramble on a ridge in front to get a better view. "He'll take off soon," says naturalist Ramiro Tomala, squinting in the morning sunshine. "It's his hunting time." A surprising assertion for visitors to Ecuador's Galapagos Islands (news - web sites) from North America, Europe and Asia -- as well as mainland Latin America -- where any self-respecting owl will only fly by night. But the day-owl is only one of many quirks of...