To the Galápagos Islands

The next two weeks I’ll be away on a tour of the Galápagos islands. I’ve read and taught about the islands, including Vonnegut’s novel of that name, for the past twenty years. So it’s exciting to actually get there.

The islands have formed out of volcanic activity over the past eight million years; some are barely tens of thousands of years old. Volcanism continues today.  This image comes from a remarkable video, Wild Galápagos.

What is remarkable is the many intricate relationships between creatures that evolved over a short period of time.  Consider the fierce-looking lava iguana, an iguana that colonizes the harsh bare rocks of solidified lava.

What do these fierce creatures eat?

The iguana grazes beneath the seawater on green algae, nourished by nutrient-rich currents from Antarctica. But then the algae must survive the powerful surf that could dash it against the rock. Remarkably, the iguana climbs back up.

While they try to rest, the iguanas are bothered by flies. So they let smaller lava lizards climb up to hunt the flies.

What about love? Everyone’s heard of the blue-footed boobies who will mate with whoever’s got the bluest feet at the moment.

But waved albatrosses pair for life, though they migrate apart across the ocean. They return to these islands to reunite. Here,  a pair of waved albatrosses rediscover each other after six months. My, are they excited!

They mate and raise a chick together–unless the wily mockingbirds get their egg first. A harsh existence, but fascinating.