The Galapagos Islands are a cluster of scattered islands almost 1000 kilometers off the Pacific coast of South America, and belong to Ecuador. In earlier times, they were thought to be lying at the other end of the world as they looked so lonely and far removed from any other land. They are the most unique islands, and let us see what makes them so special?

The islands almost look as if no wild life could exist there but nothing can be farther from the truth. There are thousands of animals that live on these islands and many are only found here and nowhere else in the world. After all where else can you find a tortoise as big as a bathtub, giant lizards that look like dragons, fishes with four eyes, glass rocks.

The islands are famous for being –

• a National Park
• a Marine Reserve
• a UNESCO World Heritage Site
• one of the most popular tourist destinations on earth.

Explorers and fisherman have always explored these islands. But a famous scientist Charles Darwin when saw the different species that existed here so distant from the rest of the world, he developed a very important theory – that the living beings constantly change and adapt to their surroundings. This is what we know today as the theory of evolution.

The only land mammals are rice rats and two species of bat. The 13 species of small, brownish finches are adapted to a range of different foods and are known collectively as Darwin’s finches. Among the Galapagos Islands sea birds, are a flightless cormorant that swim for their food , two species of gull and the only penguin species which lives in tropical waters.