VOICE ONE:
This is Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember with theVOA Special English program EXPLORATIONS. Today, we tell about theGalapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean and the unusual creaturesthat live there.
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VOICE ONE:
Love is not easy to find when youare the last male of your kind. At least that is how it seems forthe Galapagos Islands tortoise that scientists call Lonesome George.He is just one of the many animals and plants that live on thefamous group of Pacific Ocean islands.
The islands were named for the large land turtles that live onthem. At one time, the islands were home to about fifteen differentkinds of land turtles. The largest island, Isabela, has fivedifferent kinds of tortoises. But, Lonesome George is not one ofthem. He comes from a smaller island called Pinta.
Scientists found George almost thirty years ago. Humans andnon-native animals had caused much damage to the environment on hisisland. Some animals and plants had disappeared. Lonesome George wasthe only tortoise found on Pinta.
VOICE TWO:
Scientists took the turtle to the Charles Darwin Research Centeron Santa Cruz Island. They wanted to help him find a female tortoisefor mating. The scientists had been successful in similar effortsfor thousands of other tortoises.
The researchers placed George in the same living area as femalesfrom the nearby island of Isabela. Scientists thought George wouldbe more closely related to the females from Isabela than to otherGalapagos tortoises. But, Lonesome George proved hard to please.Scientists say that George never showed any interest in gettingclose to the females around him. Scientists say hopes of finding amate for George are decreasing. If no mate is found, the PintaIsland tortoises will disappear when George dies.
VOICE ONE:
Research suggested that scientists might have to look on otherislands for a mate for George. D-N-A testing showed that George’sclosest relatives do not live on Isabela as the scientists thought.Turtles most like George live on the islands of San Cristobal andEspanola.
The finding surprised scientists because San Cristobal andEspanola are the farthest Galapagos islands from Pinta. They arealmost three hundred kilometers to the south. The D-N-A discovery isjust another mystery of the Galapagos.
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VOICE TWO:
Mystery always has been part of the Galapagos. InFifteen-Thirty-Five, a ship carrying the Roman Catholic Bishop ofPanama came upon the Galapagos accidentally. Tomas de Berlanga namedthe Galapagos group the Enchanted Isles. He was surprised to seeland turtles that weighed almost three-hundred-kilograms. He saidthey were so large each could carry a man on top of itself. BishopBerlanga also noted the unusual soil of the islands. He suggestedthat one island was so stony it seemed like stones had rained fromthe sky.
VOICE ONE:
The British nature scientist Charles Darwin is mainly responsiblefor the fame of the Galapagos Islands. He visited the islands inEighteen-Thirty-Five. He collected plants and animals from severalislands.
After many years of research, he wrote the book “The Origin ofSpecies.” He developed the theory of evolution that life on Earthdeveloped through the process of natural selection. The book changedthe way people think about how living things developed and changedover time.
Darwin said the Galapagos brought people near “to that great fact– that mystery of mysteries — the first appearance of new beingson earth”.
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VOICE TWO:
More than one-hundred-twenty-five land masses make up theGalapagos. Only nineteen are large enough to be considered islands.The Galapagos are a province of Ecuador. The island group liesacross the equator about one-thousand kilometers west of the coastof South America.
The Galapagos Islands are generally dry. Giant cactus and othersmaller thorny desert plants grow just above the coast of the largerislands. Higher up is a wetter area that produces small trees. Abovethat are tall trees and bushes. That level can be foggy with wetclouds surrounding the tree tops. Sunflower trees live on thehighest part of the tallest islands. They can grow more than fifteenmeters in height.
VOICE ONE:
Scientists have been wondering for years about the position ofthe Galapagos in the Pacific Ocean. Scientists used to think thatthe islands were connected to the South American mainland andfloated out to sea slowly. Today, most scientists think the islandswere always where they are now. But, they think the islands oncewere a single land mass under water. Volcanic activity broke thelarge island into pieces that came to the surface of the sea overtime.
But scientists wonder how animals arrived on Galapagos if theislands were always so far from the mainland. Scientists think mostGalapagos plants and animals floated to the islands. When riversflood in South America, small pieces of land flow into the ocean.These rafts can hold trees and bushes.
The rafts also can hold smallmammals and reptiles. The adult Galapagos tortoise clearly is toobig for a trip hundreds of kilometers across the ocean. But, turtleeggs or baby turtles would be small enough to float to the islands.
VOICE TWO:
The islands are home to manyunusual birds, reptiles and small mammals. Some of the animals liveno where else on Earth. The tortoise is the most famous Galapagosreptile. But it is not rarer than the marine iguana. It is the onlyiguana in the world that goes into the ocean. The marine iguana eatsseaweed. It can dive at least fifteen meters below the oceansurface. And it can stay down there for more than thirty minutes.
Several strange birds also live on the Galapagos. One of them isthe only penguin that lives on the equator. Another is the frigatebird. It has loose skin on its throat that it can blow up into ahuge red balloon-like structure. It does this to attract females whomake observation flights over large groups of males.
VOICE ONE:
The Galapagos also are noted for a bird that likes water betterthan land or air. The cormorant is able to fly in all the otherplaces it lives around the world. But, the Galapagos cormorant hasextremely short wings. They can not support flight. But they workwell for swimming.
The Galapagos Islands also have a large collection of small birdscalled Darwin’s finches. Charles Darwin studied the finchescarefully when he visited the Galapagos in Eighteen-Thirty-Five. Heseparated the birds by the shapes of their beaks. Finches that livedin different places and ate different foods had different shapedbeaks.
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VOICE TWO:
Scientists continue to study life on the Galapagos Islands. But,they have just begun to study the deepest parts of the ocean thatsurrounds the islands. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington,D-C sent marine biologist Carole Baldwin to the Galapagos. MizzBaldwin traveled nine-hundred meters down to the bottom of the oceannear the islands. She did so in a clear plastic bubble watercraftcalled the Johnson Sea-Link Two.
The Sea-Link has powerful lights to battle the extreme darknessof the deep. The watercraft also has several long robotic arms. Theycollect sealife. The trips to the bottom of the sea resulted in thediscovery of more than ten new kinds of sea life. Some of thediscoveries were captured on film.
VOICE ONE:
The Smithsonian currently is showing a special movie about MizzBaldwin’s trip to the Galapagos. The movie was filmed using the Imax3-D technique. The movie is shown on a huge screen at the Museum ofNatural History in Washington, D-C. Three-D movies on huge screensgive images much more depth. People who watch the movie wear largeglasses to observe the 3-D effect. They experience the movie in adifferent way.
For example, some viewers reach out to touch a Galapagos tortoisebecause it seems so close. Other viewers throw back their heads toavoid the splash of a wave on a rock on Santa Cruz island. It iseasy to forget that the images are on a screen and are not real. Themovie tries to provide an experience similar to a forty-minute visitto the interesting and unusual Galapagos Islands.
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VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written and produced by CatyWeaver. This is Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Mary Tillotson. Join us again next week for anotherExplorations program on the Voice of America.