Galapagos Animals - 2 page 1
Some (more) of the Animals Found in the Galapagos Islands

There are many species found in the Galapagos, some of them are endemic to the islands, others are found elsewhere too. Here are some more inhabitants of this fascinating and unique part of the world.

---

Sally Lightfoot crab - Graspus graspus

Sally Lightfoot Crabs are one of the few Galapagos animals that will run away from the visitor, they live typically along the shore line and get their name from their ability to apparently walk on water as they scurry quickly across the rocks. Like many crabs they live on a varied diet of small animals that they catch and carrion that they scavenge.

---

---

Brown Pelican - Pelicanus occidentalis urinator

"urinator" is the Galapagos Islands own subspecies of the brown pelican, it is latin and means "diver". Like many Galapagos birds, the Brown pelican is unmistakable, it has a heavy body, enormous bill and long neck, usually bent back in flight. They are best seen in the central islands, often perching on boats waiting for food to be made accidentally or deliberately available to them. They fish by means of an inelegant, but effective plunge dive feeding on small fish and crustaceans. Their fishing method is almost a sort of filter feeding in that they fill their pouch under the bill with water containing the food during the dive which they then filter out.

They breed in lone nests or in small groups, sometimes in shrubs, sometimes in mangroves or more rarely on rocks.

---

Galapagos Fur Seal - Arctocephalus galapagoensis

Fur Seals are smaller than the Sea Lions and tend to be found on rocky rather than sandy shorelines where their smaller size makes it easier for them to climb ashore. Fur Seals are not so widespread in the Galapagos Islands, they feed on squid rather than fish and so need deeper water in order to find their prey and so tend to be found around the outer shores rather than in the middle shallower regions, they will dive up to 100m to reach their food. Like many other fur seals in other regions of the world, the Galapagos Fur Seal is currently in a population upswing, this represents a recovery still from the 19th century when they were hunted to the brink of extinction by sealers who killed them for their fur.They are at risk of physical injury from litter and the flotsam from fishing boats, but the greatest potential danger is from over fishing of their food supply.

---

Galapagos Mockingbird - Mimus parvulus

There are four mockingbird species on the Galapagos and six sub-species of this particular one Mimus parvulus, DNA studies show taht all are likely to have been descended from a single original species in a similar adaptive radiation that the better known Darwin's Finches underwent.

Unlike the sea-birds of the Galapagos, the land birds tend to be less distinctive and more difficult to identify. Many of the land bird original species have evolved into a variety of other species, sub-species and varieties endemic and particular to groups of islands, individual islands or even to small areas of one or a few islands.

---

Swallow-tailed Gull - Larus furcatus

This particularly beautiful and graceful bird is the world's only nocturnal gull. They are widespread though not common throughout the eastern islands, the majority of the species nest in the Galapagos with just a few pairs off the coast of Colombia. They have larger eyes than any other gulls, an adaptation for feeding at night, they eat fish and squid that rise to feed on plankton, they are thought to be attracted to phosphorescence emitted by the squid. They are the only gulls to have white young, which is thought to aid the parents in finding them n the dark.

---

---

Top banner credit - Ndecam from London UK, used under CC2 Attribution Generic license.