Day 12: Santa Fe and South Plaza Islands
On the seventh day of our cruise we took at morning walk on Santa Fe island, the same name as the city where we lived in New Mexico. The landscape here was quite different and was covered with colorful ice plants and cactus.
This was the first island where we could easily see some of the evolutionary adaptations made by the plants and animals on the islands. This is a prickly pear cactus. On the mainland, these do not grow to this height. They evolved to grow to great heights here to prevent the tortoises from stripping them bare. At the base you can see a Land Iguana. These fellows wait for the fruit of the prickly pear to fall down so they can eat them.
This Land Iguana is not colorful like the one we saw at the Darwin center since it wasn't mating season for him, but he made up for it in size.
We also saw a Hybrid Marine-Lang Iguana. Hybrids come from a male Marine Iguana and a female Land Iguana. They are evolutionary dead ends since they cannot reproduce themselves. Poor fellow.
Here are one of the famous Darwin's finches. This fellow actually evolved from a tanager from the mainland. Over time evolution gave him a finch-like bill to feast from the prickly pear cactus. Here you can see him feeding and covered with nectar from the fruit of the cactus.
Elegant Red-billed Tropic Birds flew from the cliffs with their long tails with acrobatics that resembled fighter jets.
They also nested among the cliffs. This is a chick that is probably very close to leaving the nest.
