A volcanic archipelago roughly 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador, straddling the equator at the meeting point of the cold Humboldt and Cromwell currents and the warm Panama current, a collision that produces an unusual mix of tropical and cold water species side by side. The extreme isolation of the islands produced marine iguanas found nowhere else, giant tortoises for which the archipelago is named, and the finches whose varied beaks helped lead the young naturalist Charles Darwin toward the theory of natural selection following his 1835 visit. Now an Ecuadorian national park and one of the largest marine reserves on Earth, the islands remain a living laboratory for evolutionary biology.
Facts
Classification
Biogeographic Realm Protected Status Area (sq km) Galapagos
Filter Results2 entries
Connections
Demonstrates
Strong El Nino events sharply warm the waters around the Galapagos, collapsing the cold-water upwelling the food web depends on; marine iguana and Galapagos penguin populations are documented to crash during major episodes (1982-83, 1997-98), making Galapagos one of the most closely studied real-world demonstrations of ENSO's ecological effect.
Source National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Hosts
Source World Wildlife Fund
Source Brown Pelican (Wikipedia)
Source Wikipedia: Galapagos Penguin
Source World Wildlife Fund
Source Magnificent Frigatebird (Wikipedia)
Source World Wildlife Fund
In Biome
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Ecuador, found in there.
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.britannica.com/place/Galapagos-Islands, land area sentence
Their total land area of 3,093 square miles (8,010 square km) is scattered over 23,000 square miles (59,500 square km) of ocean.
- Biogeographic realm: neotropic (derived from location stated in entity description)
Protected status (stated plainly in the entity own recorded description)
Now an Ecuadorian national park and one of the largest marine reserves on Earth, the islands remain a living laboratory for evolutionary biology.
- Demonstrates: Natural Selection
View the Source National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationDemonstrates: El Nino-Southern OscillationView the Source World Wildlife Fund
World Wildlife Fund- In Biome: Marine
- Hosts: Galapagos Tortoise
- Hosts: Marine Iguana
- Hosts: Blue-footed Booby
View the Source Brown Pelican (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHosts: Brown Pelican, article text (ecosystem), EntityId 279941, target E16326Quote, Hosts: Brown Pelican, article text (ecosystem), EntityId 279941, target E16326
It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mouth of the Amazon River, and along the Pacific Coast from British Columbia to Peru, including the Galapagos Islands.
Magnificent Frigatebird (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHosts: Magnificent Frigatebird, article text (ecosystem), EntityId 279925, target E16326Quote, Hosts: Magnificent Frigatebird, article text (ecosystem), EntityId 279925, target E16326
There are also populations on the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific and the Cape Verde islands in the Atlantic.
Wikipedia: Galapagos Penguin
WikipediaHosts: Galapagos Penguin, article text (ecosystem), EntityId 346042, target E16326Quote, Hosts: Galapagos Penguin, article text (ecosystem), EntityId 346042, target E16326
The Galápagos penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus) is a penguin endemic to the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador.
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