Ecuador-Galapagos South America January, 2006 For those of you that aren’t that familiar with the Galapagos, they are an island group about 1000km off the coast of Ecuador, which straddles the Equator (hence the name). The Galapagos are famous for a few reasons, the most notable being the importance they played in Charles Darwin’s data gathering during the voyage of the Beagle. Twenty years later, he finally published his work on the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, which has remained the dominant theory for Natural History scientists since that time. The other primary reason people are fascinated with the Galapagos is the fact that during it’s 5 million years of natural history, no predators evolved on the islands. This means that the animal inhabitants have virtually no fear and humans can observe the animals while sitting right next to them. Unlike Africa, they don’t run away and because there are no predators you don’t have to worry about being eaten by some ravenous lion. Lonely Planet Information for Ecuador-Galapagos

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