Wildlife of the Galapagos Part 2

The next island we visited was Isabella, the largest of all the islands but with a sparse human population (2000). This is not because of the lack of land, it is the largest landmass, but because the island is one of the youngest and as such has very little soil and is composed mainly of lava rock which is sharp and difficult to traverse. So most of the wildlife is based in the sea. There are also 5 volcanoes on this island each with its own species of tortoise.

Oooooo just look at that sharp lava rock...infact the pioneer plants on this stuff are cactii, or cactus in this picture...the green bits in the right are....

...a little oasis is a sea of very sharp lava rock.......

But mostly animal life is in the sea or on the coast...

A bundle of marine iguanas, they really do swim in the salty sea and spit salt throug htheir nose, note the big red coloured male on the left.

Galapagos penguins...live close to the equator...which means sometimes they are in the northern hemishpere......

Flightless cormorants really can't fly, but are very fast swimmers under the water

...and under the water there be Turtles.....thanks to Murray, Carol and Liam for donating this picture...

...and golden cow nose rays, very rare in such a large group, so we heard.....

..a very petulant pelican...

...Oh land Iguana's too... There is a recently discovered species of land iguana, pink in colour on Wolf volcano, but this is a common or garden Isabella land iguana.

Alongside Isabella Island is Fernandina, which is the youngest of all the Galapagos islands, and is basically a volcano, last eruption was in April 2009.

Here they have....

...marine iguanas...this is one of the pretty one's...

A dead Bryde's whale, spot captain Ahabs missing leg on the right....no I didn't have a bad case of Moby Dick....

Ahhhh.... iguana love is.....sharing a quiet trunk in the sun

There is also some plant life too...

Do you know what it is... Red Mangrove on the right and white mangrove on the left..

Lava cactus... this species only on Fernandina...

...the beaches on Fernandina are fairly new and are composed of shell and not sand, and some lava rock...

Sunset, right on the equator!!! awesome...

Finally we visited Bartolome and the plazas islands...

this is Bartolome Island, as featured in the film Master and Commander... the one with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany

...didn't impress the cactus though, different species to fernandina..

Then the finally the Plazas... famous for...

...baby sea lions.....

...cactus forrests, and different coloured sesuvium, red and yellow and green...

...swallow tailed gulls,..

Dead Cactus with just the cell walls,  dried...

The rock the sea lion is lying on is actually black lava rock that has been covered in...seal poo and polished like marble as the sea lions move across it...