Galapagos vacations check our amazing gallery of 28 animals from the Ecuadorian province islands, national park, and a biological marine reserve!
The Galapagos Islands are a beautiful and magical place which if you have the opportunity to visit you should definitely go.
We have chosen from thousands of images at our favorite stock photography website 500px to pick our favorite 28 images which highlight this spectacular place and it’s amazing flora and fauna.
About the Galapagos Islands
The Galapagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands are in the Pacific Ocean distributed on either side of the Equator 575 miles west of continental Ecuador.
Their surrounding waters form a national park, and a biological marine reserve. The population of slightly over 25,000 who mainly speak Spanish.
Famed for a vast number of endemic species which were studied and catalogue by Charles Darwin during his historic voyage aboard the Beagle when his observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.
The islands are in the chain situated in both the northern and southern hemispheres, Volcán Wolf and Volcán Ecuador on Isla Isabela sit directly on the equator. Española Island is the most southern and Darwin Island is the most northern, they are spread out over 137 miles. The Galapagos Archipelago has a total land area of 3,040 sq miles spread over 17,000 sq miles of ocean. The largest of the islands, Isabela, measures 2,250 sq miles which make up close to 75% of the total land area of the Galapagos.
There are 18 main islands, 3 smaller islands, and 107 rocks and islets which are located on the Nazca tectonic plate and considered a hotspot where the Earth’s crust melts from below creating volcanoes and are aged at between 8 million to 90 million years.
Some of the older islands in the group have disappeared below the surface of the sea as they move away from the mantle plume, the youngest islands Isabela and Fernandina are still in formation with the most recent volcanic eruption in April 2009.
The first known visit to the islands happened in 1535 by a Dominican friar named Fray Tomas de Berlanga when he was accidently blown off course, when he returned to the Spain he described the islands and the flora and fauna that inhabited them although it was not until 1684 that the islands were first charted by the buccaneer Ambrose Cowley in 1684 when he named the individual islands after some of his fellow pirates.
Recently the Ecuadorian Government gave most of the islands Spanish names. While the Spanish names are official many continue to use the older English names mainly because those were the names used when Charles Darwin visited.
Galapagos Vacations
Images Sourced: 500px