Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 5
A Pharaoh cuttlefi sh,
Sepia
sp., caught sleeping. Its body is covered with retract-
able protuberances and its tentacles are crumpled, so that it resembles a lump of coral.
Our immense family tree
When Darwin briefl y visited the geologically young Galàpagos Islands in
1835, he was overwhelmed by evidence that recent evolutionary changes had
shaped life on that remote archipelago. It gradually became clear to him that
the closely related animals and plants on the dif erent islands of the archipel-
ago had radiated adaptively from a small number of ancestors that had made
their way or been carried to the islands. His visit to the Galàpagos, along with
many other observations that he made during his fi ve-year voyage, helped to
plant the germ of the idea of natural selection in his mind.
When I plunged into Indonesia's Lembeh Strait my experience was very
dif erent from Darwin's. I was overwhelmed by the almost insane diversity
of life there. Traces of recent evolution are not common at Lembeh, though
