While in the Galapagos, Darwin observed that there were many animal species on the Galapagos that lived nowhere else in the world, although they resembled species living in South America.

He also identified several similar but unique species of finches that existed only on the Galapagos. In some cases, species would be unique to one or a few islands that were close together. (1 degree of longitude is around 110 km at the equator.)

Cool hyperlinked map from http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/GalapagosWWW/GalapagosMap.html

http://www.rit.edu/~rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/DarwinFinch2.html

What Darwin observed in the Galapagos inspired his thoughts on evolution and helped produce his famous book.

Back Next

Back to Lecture 22 outline

Back to lectures page

Back to main course page