Nature's bounty in the Galapagos AMAZING LIVING WORLD

ONCE called the Enchanted Isles, where pirates buried their stolen treasure, and where castaways and mutineers found refuge or were abandoned, the Galapagos islands are today inhabited by more than 20,000 people.

These islands were discovered in 1535, by the Bishop of Panama. Lying in the Pacific Ocean, off the northwest coast of South America, their existence did not interest anybody except the occasional voyager and fugitive pirates. But Charles Darwin's 1835 voyage in the HMS Beagle was to change all that.

The islands, their geology, plants and animals made a lasting impression on Darwin, triggering off a chain of thought that culminated in his theory of the "Origin of Species". It brought to the world's attention the Galapagos' rich and varied flora and fauna.

The Galapagos Islands are made up of 14 main and numerous small islands and are part of the country of Ecuador.

Among the strange birds and animals that live in the Galapagos are the rare cormorant that cannot fly; the penguin, once believed to be a native solely of Antarctica and unusual mockingbirds. There are giant tortoises that weigh more than 230 kilograms. The Spanish word for the tortoise, “galapagos”, gave the islands their name. The islands have 14 varieties of the tortoise family, with characteristics varying from island to island.

But the most fantastic of all the animals found here are the lizards called iguanas, many of them over a metre long. Other more familiar creatures include herons, sea birds called boobies and scarlet crabs. There are large sea bird colonies, and guano deposits on the islands.

The islands were declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1979.