|
Galapagos Islands
.com > The Galapagos Islands > Natural History > Galapagos and Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin in the Galapagos
 Perhaps
our first association with the word "Galapagos"
is the name "Darwin" – and not with out reason.
The theories of the Galapagos' most famous visitor have highly
influenced western thought inspired over 150 years of biological
research. And it was the Galapagos Islands, after a visit
of only four islands in five weeks, which were to have a resounding
impact on the formations of Darwin's
Theory of Natural Selection.
A rather unmotivated and failing medicine
scholar, Charles Darwin was the second choice of Captain Robert
Fitzroy as a travel companion and naturalist on the HMS Beagle.
The Story of this journey was documented by Darwin and can
be read in his Voyage of the Beagle. (See the links page for
the full text.) When setting off from England in 1831 for
a five-year voyage, Darwin himself had little ambitions for
groundbreaking scientific research. After collecting fossils
on the South American shores, the Beagle, one among many ships
to do so at the time, stopped at the Galapagos as a way station
to collect tortoises for meat for their continuing journey.
At 26 years old, Darwin landed on San
Cristobal. During his stay in the Galapagos Islands (Floreana, Isabela,
San Cristóbal, and Santiago), the same characteristic
struck Darwin that strikes many visitors to date –that
the creatures that roam, fly and swim around these islands
often were so unique from those elsewhere. Not only that many
Galapagos species were distinct from those on the mainland,
but that between islands many species of similar features
were so perfectly adapted for their environment. Among those
that struck Darwin so greatly were the finches, with such
varying diets as cactus and seeds, fruits and blood that are
now named in his honor. Darwin would later base some of his
thought from the supposing that these finches were all descendents
of the same lineage.
Having collected a great deal of wildlife
and stacks of notes, it wouldn't be until 1859 that Darwin
would consolidate all of his observations into his Origin
of Species, drastically and controversially altering western
thought on the nature of nature.
For more information on Charles
Darwin, see our links section.
|
