GALAPAGOS+ISLANDS

**//__The Spotted Eagle Ray__//** = = The Galapagos Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean, 1000 kilometres west of Ecuador, South America. These islands have so many wonders, but I can only talk about one. I would like to talk about the Spotted Eagle Ray.

The Spotted Eagle Ray is a species of stingray that lives around the islands. It belongs to the Myliobatidae family. They can weigh up to 230 kg. Commonly observed over coral reefs, their diet is mostly bivalves, shrimp, crabs, annelids, whelks and other small fish. In appearance the Spotted Eagle Ray has a broad snout with a V shaped mouth flap. It is considered to be one of the most beautiful rays with a dramatic white spotted pattern distinct against the dark body colour. As they travel through the coral reefs, they have been observed congregating in large schools. They have also been seen cruising close to the surface, and like to “porpoise” or leap out of the water. As with other ray species, they possess flat plates of teeth which are used to crush the hardened shells of prey. I think the Spotted Eagle Ray is special to the Galapagos Islands because of their distinctive beauty and their habit of leaping out of the water.

By Lachlan Brown



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Galapagos Island Tortoise The Galapagos island tortoise has a strange fact about it, its Spanish name means saddle; this is talking about the shape of the tortoise shell. The tortoise is the largest on earth weighing over 250 kg and 150cm. They are very land based and has some small struggles swimming because of their excessive weight. People think that the strangely large tortoise floated up a river along the pacific coast on a piece of wood. There are a few large tortoises that live in south America. This tortoise may be related to it because of its size and weight. There are many sub-species of the tortoise throughout the main island and a few smaller islands. From the sub-species there is the smallest of them have the “saddle back”. The largest of them have a sort of dome back on them. The larger ones generally live on Santa Cruz. These creatures are generally vegetarians that eat plants and fallen fruits, basically anything they don’t have to go far to collect. they also are rather good at surviving bad times, over 100 000 survived a many droughts on what little water remained on the island. They are also fairly smart creatures as they would climb up mountains in the dry, grassy and cold season to get the water from the misty air at the top of mountains. They would also eat the grass that would have much due sitting on them. I liked the Galapagos island tortoise (no not just because I’m a turtle) it is actually very interesting to learn about the largest and unique kind of creatures such as this creature. [] By Turtle/Mathew Pearce

The Yellow Warbler The Galapagos Islands are situated in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The Galapagos Islands are approximately 1000km off the west coast of the South American border. In total there are 18 main islands and they are all formed by interaction of Plate tectonics and Hot Spat Volcanism. We will be focusing on the Yellow Warbler, a land bird only found in the Galapagos Island. The male yellow warbler is distinctively brighter in colours and has a reddish strips along the breast of the body and red colouration on its head where necessary. The female on the other hand is duller and has a dull green/black colour on its head and the lower body. The Warbler stands at about 12 – 13 cm in height and its win span can be up to 16 – 20 cm. The Warbler approximately weighs 9 – 11 grams. The Yellow Warbler lays 3 – 6 eggs at a time and the process of hatching usually takes up to 11 days. The reproductive work load is equally shared among the adult female and male Warbler with the female building and maintaining the nest, incubating and feeding the chicks once hatched, the male on the other hand takes the job of protecting the nest, hunting for food and delivering it to the waiting mother. As the chicks grow older, the males work load increases. The Yellow Warbler lives in the Mangrove trees among the islands. Mud sticks and Mangrove leaves make up their sturdy, cup shape nests. The Warbler feeds on mainly arthropods mainly including insects and caterpillars and in the time of winter, berries and juicy fruits are the staple food. The land bird catches their food by hiding in bushes and shrubs and hawking their prey. Their main predators are snakes, corvids and even large climbing rodents. We personally believe that the Yellow Warbler is a unique land bird to the Galapagos Islands because they can live in harsh climates and still manage to have a booming population of this species. By: Maddi Cullen and Georgia Dawson

[|Galapagos Island Yellow Warber You tube clip]



 The Galapagos Island - Waved Albatross - by Lorinda Merrypor

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The Galapagos Island Waved Albatross belongs to the Diamedeidae family and is most commonly found mainly on the Ecuador and Peruvian coasts of the Galapagos. The name 'Waved Albatross' come from the wave-like pattern on the adults feathers.=====

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A special feature of the Waved Albatross is it's spectacular flying skills. The Albatross can fly for hours on end and they do this by dynamic soaring. However, the Waved Albatross has trouble landing and taking off. This is due to their large wings and slender bodies. The main food sources of the Albatross are fish, squid and crustaceans. When searching for food the Waved Albatross finds areas of the ocean where their prey will emerge, this is the best way for the Waved Albatross to get its food. They will travel 10-100 km away from their chicks to find food.=====

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Courtship of the Waved Albatross' is very unique. It consists of bowing, bill circling, beak clacking and a 'whoo hoo' sound. The nests are built on lava with boulders and thick bush. Eggs are layed anywhere between April and June. Young Albatross' reach adult size by December and leave the nest by January.=====

I think that the Waved Albatross is unique and special to the Galapagos Islands because they are great flyers and can survive in the unsympathetic climate and conditions.
[|Waved Albatross Taking Flight] .............................................................................................................................................................................................

Boobies
The booby is a sea bird most commonly found on the Galapagos Island. It is renowned for its queer blue feet and strange hunting method. The booby is a fish eating bird and will dive from great heights into the water to catch its prey. They are colonial breeders like penguins, which means they breed in roups rather than in induvidual couples. On average they would lay one or two chalky white-blue eggs. The odd name comes from the word //bubi// meaning “dunce” this could be because they were easy to capture and ship wrecked sailors would often catch and eat them. ---Simion & Tom--- __**FRIGATE BIRD** BY HAYDEN__ The most common volcanoes on Galapagos are sheild volcanoes, that are often compared to over-turned soup bowls.

The frigate bird is also called the man o’ war these interestingly coloured birds belong to the ocean but they aren’t waterproof. These birds have a wingspan of about 1.8 metres and the hooked beak that they have helps them get the fish without getting wet. Although it can catch fish it has a better idea it steals food from other birds, the most common are the boobies but whatever it sees it steals it’s just survival to them. When it comes to nests and their families they just steal another bird’s nest or it raids a nest for sticks to build its own. The males have a shiny green or purple plumage and as you can see a big red patch in front of them under their beaks to please the females. There are two different species of frigate bird; there is the magnificent frigate bird and the great frigate bird. The main places where the frigate birds’ nest is in the Galapagos Islands near Genovese and the north Seymour Islands. I think the frigate birds are unique to the Galapagos Islands because they are a colourful, distinguishing and quite amazing species of bird. They steal from other birds and that is a bit strange because I thought birds sort of got along with each other to a point. []

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**__Galapagos Islands Tortoises __** The Galapagos Islands are positioned in the Pacific Ocean. The Galapagos Islands closet country situated near the Galapagos Island is South America. There are many special features about the Galapagos Island’s but what we choose to discuss is about the Galapagos tortoise.

There are 14 different spices of Galapagos tortoises, 3 of which are extinct. These tortoises can grow a shell from 29 inches and 60 pounds or up to 4 feet and 700 pounds. Some of the spices of Galapagos tortoises are under threat of becoming extinct and a solution to this problem is that we must start breeding them. There are between 9,000 and 10,000 tortoises living on the Galapagos Islands at the moment.

The tortoises are fairly lazy and they wake up between 7am to 8am and then they go back to sleep in the afternoon between 4pm and 5pm. The Galapagos turtles warm themselves up by sitting in the sun but they are not cold blooded. The Galapagos Turtles are generalized as herbivores feeding on grasses, vines, cactus fruit, and other vegetation. The turtles mating season is between January and August and it occurs when the male stalks a female.

In conclusion we thought that the Galapagos Tortoise is unique and special to the Galapagos Islands because of their sheer size and unique behaviour that they have. Another unique fact about these gentle giants is the way they mate by the female ramming herself with the front of the males shell and nipping her exposed legs until she draws them in. Thank you for reading about the wonderful creature the Galapagos Tortoise.



__Mitchell Gemmell & Kieran Duffin__

The Galapagos Island Land Iguana by Mrs Bryant
 The Galápagos Islands Spanish names: //Islas de Colón// or //Islas// are an [|archipelago] of [|volcanic islands] distributed around the [|equator] in the [|Pacific Ocean], 972 km west of continental [|Ecuador] , of which they are a part. It is a [|UNESCO World Heritage site] : wildlife is its most notable feature.  There are many special features about the island but I would like to tell you about the G alapagos land iguanas. They are active during the day and maintain their body temperature by basking in the sun to warm up and seeking shade when they become too hot. In the morning they can be found basking, but during the heat of midday they tend to retreat into shade. At night they sleep in burrows which they dig themselves. This species is [|omnivorou] [|s] but tends to mainly eat plants and the fruits and pads of cactus trees. They may remove the spines with their claws, and these cacti provide them with plenty of moisture during dry spells.  This iguana lives in the drier areas of the islands on which they occur, in scrubby habitats. Females require access to areas of sandy or loose soil in which to lay their eggs; some females even use the ash around dormant volcanic craters. <span style="background: white; display: block; mso-background-themecolor: background1; text-align: justify;"> Males defend territories, with displays involving head bobbing, biting and tail thrashing. During courtship, males aggressively court the females. They then lay two to 20 eggs in a 50 cm deep burrow. The nest site is guarded for a number of days after laying the eggs, in order to prevent other females from laying in the same place and damaging them. The young hatch after 85 to 110 days; it then takes them up to a week to dig their way out of the burrow. Maturity is reached between eight and 15 years. If they survive the first years of life, when they are most vulnerable to predation and food scarcity, land iguanas can live for up to 50 years.

<span style="background: white; display: block; mso-background-themecolor: background1; text-align: justify;"> I think the land Iguanas are unique and special to the Galapagos Islands because they deal with a harsh environment and have survived there for hundreds of years.

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<span style="line-height: 120%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: center;"> **<span style="color: #336699; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 17pt; line-height: 120%;">Vampire finches of the Galápagos!!!! ** <span style="line-height: 120%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: center;"> **<span style="color: #336699; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 17pt; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">﻿ ** <span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 8pt;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">The Galapagos Islands were formed due to volcanic eruptions over the past 200 years with over 50 eruptions occurring. The volcanic activity in the area threatened the flora and fauna. As well as creating new things such as the Pahoehoe lava flow on Santiago Island. The landscape of the islands is mainly volcanic which was formed from about 3 million to 5 million years ago. The islands were formed over top of a hot spot. The multiple volcanic eruptions were underneath each other which pushed the landmass up above the water to form the islands. Where ever the tectonic plates that hold the Galapagos Islands are the volcanic activity follows that is why new islands are being formed in the west part of the islands and volcanic activity on the east has slowed down dramatically. Which is why the rocks are newer on the west and more aged on the east side of the islands. For instance the easterly islands are among other islands that are partially or entirely sunken aging over 5 million years old. However, many of the central and easterly islands (such as Fernandina and Isabela) have more recent volcanic activity dating back only 2 million years. The individual islands are usually formed from shied volcanoes. However the largest island is the Isabela which is formed from 6 volcanoes which when erupt flow into each other. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">The vampire finch i just like most other finchs and is believed to be just an average finch that has evolved to suit its environment in very unnatural ways. The theory is that they began as an average finch picking ticks of the booby birds to help clean them but the finches had really pointy beaks and would break the skin and after a while they started going for the tail and drinking the blood to supplement their diet. Now they station themselves on the booby birds tail where they cant reach and feast upon the larger birds blood, but they also target the young and defenceless and even attack eggs. The vampire finches are unique to the Galapagos Islands because they are just like the other tick eating finches except after pecking through the skin of the booby birds they realised they can <span style="height: 106.5pt; margin-left: 177.75pt; margin-top: 87.75pt; mso-position-horizontal-relative: text; mso-position-horizontal: absolute; mso-position-vertical-relative: line; mso-position-vertical: absolute; mso-wrap-style: square; position: absolute; visibility: visible; width: 161.25pt; z-index: 1;"> <span style="height: 106.5pt; margin-left: -13.5pt; margin-top: 167.25pt; mso-position-horizontal-relative: text; mso-position-horizontal: absolute; mso-position-vertical-relative: line; mso-position-vertical: absolute; mso-wrap-style: square; position: absolute; visibility: visible; width: 168pt; z-index: 2;">  supplement themselves without the ticks. It is not known how they came to the islands. By Jesse Ahmann, Joel Alexander, Aiden Mcdougal