Darwin Arrives in the Galapagos Islands

Today, in 1835, Charles Darwin aboard the ship HMS Beagle, arrived at the Galapagos archipelago, a cluster of islands on the equator 600 miles west of South America. During his five weeks studying the fauna in the Galapagos, Darwin found the giant tortoises differed considerably between the islands, depending on the type of vegetation available to them. Moreover, many islands developed their own races of iguanas. These observations contributed to his theory of "natural selection," that species evolved over thousands of millions of years. For more posts on Charles Darwin click here.