WEBVTT - Reptiles of Galapagos, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.080 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:17.959 My name is Robert Manam and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.480 we're back with part two of our series on the 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.360 reptiles of the Galapagos Islands. Now, in the previous episode, 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.440 we focused mainly on the marine iguana, or as as 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:31.800 they were often referred to early on those hideous creatures, 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:37.480 those stupid, awful, sluggish lizards. We we mounted a defense 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:40.800 of the marine iguana. But today we are here to 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:44.720 talk about the Galapagos tortoise. And I wanted to kick 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:49.519 things off by reading a passage from Charles Darwin in 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.080 the Voyage of the Beagle. Darwin, of course, was not 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.360 just a great scientist, but a really wonderful writer. And 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.160 I think this this will help set the scene. So 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:01.080 are you ready to hear about Darwin's first vision of 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:05.479 San Cristobul Island, then then what they called Chatham Island. Yeah, 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.800 let's let's hear from from old Charles. And this is 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.920 part of a narrative of when he slept ashore one 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.720 night on the island, So off the boat, Darwin writes 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.920 the entire surface of this part of the island seems 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:23.440 to have been permeated like a sieve by the subterranean vapors. 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.760 Here and there the lava, whilst soft, has been blown 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.039 into great bubbles, and in other parts the tops of 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:35.759 cavern similarly formed of fallen in, leaving circular pits with 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.800 steep sides from the regular form of the many craters. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.720 They gave to the country an artificial appearance which vividly 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.520 reminded me of those parts of Staffordshire where the great 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.640 iron foundries are most numerous. The day was growing hot, 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.600 and the scrambling over the rough surface and through the 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.720 intricate thickets was very fatiguing, but I was well repaid 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:03.360 by the strange clopian scene. As I was walking along, 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.280 I met two large tortoises, each of which must have 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.760 weighed at least two hundred pounds. One was eating a 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.919 piece of cactus, and as I approached it stared at 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.760 me and slowly walked away. The other gave a deep 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:23.239 hiss and drew in its head. These huge reptiles, surrounded 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:27.720 by the black lava, the leafless shrubs and large cacti, 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:32.320 seemed to my fancy like some Antediluvian animals. The few 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.840 dull colored birds cared no more for me than they 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:40.120 did for the great tortoises. So Darwin transported to a 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:44.200 time from before Noah's flood by the vision of these bizarre, 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:49.960 gigantic tortoises crawling around on the on the lava. Yes, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.799 this is the great SCENEY paints here and um and yeah. 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:55.880 As I mentioned in the first episode, I was. I 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.639 was fortunate enough to get to travel to the Galapico 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.480 Highlands uh to to a couple of months ago in 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:03.679 San Cristobo Island was one of the islands that I 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.799 got to visit, and this was pretty much the the 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.600 the experience I had with my family walking through one 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.680 of the uh the areas they had set aside for 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:18.480 these magnificent tortoises. They're just they just they walk around 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.080 as if yeah, as if you you don't matter, unless 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.600 you get a little too close for their liking, in 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.920 which case they'll often be this hiss and this retraction 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:29.760 of their head. I mean, their heads don't retract in 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:31.680 the same way that say, a box turtle does, but 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:33.720 they're able to sort of pull their head in a bit. 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.680 But that the hissing that Darwin is describing here. It 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.280 does have a very i don't know, neumatic kind of 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:42.480 quality to it. It feels it sounds like some sort 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:46.080 of machinery um. And indeed, that's that's kind of more 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.280 what it is, as opposed to like the hiss you 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:52.240 might hear from a house cat or something. And one 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.280 of the things that I kept thinking about while encountering 0:03:55.320 --> 0:04:00.320 them is that they already move with this kind of hookey, 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:05.080 jerky kind of um locomotion. They already move like they 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:11.200 are elaborate mechanical creatures created for practical effects for a 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:15.160 nineteen nineties UH science fiction feature. And then they also 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.000 make this hissing sound to move part of their anatomy. 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.040 So it almost creates this feeling of am I really 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:27.320 seeing real animals or is this an elaborate hoax these animatronics? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.000 they they feel almost like animatronics, But of course they're 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.479 they're they're they're quite alive, and they're quite but that's 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:34.960 that's part of their strangeness. And they just the awe 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:39.760 of watching these giant creatures walk around, slowly, eat and 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:44.920 occasionally have some startling interactions. Now I'm I'm greatly envious 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.080 of the opportunity you got to see these animals in person. 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.359 But I trust that you did not do what Darwin 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:55.120 did upon encountering these beasts and try to ride them. 0:04:55.400 --> 0:05:00.160 Absolutely not know they're the only time the time we 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.480 were forced to get uncomfortably close with one of these 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:05.520 situations of the area that we were walking through had 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.080 a path, and you're supposed to stay on the path 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.240 and keep your distance from the tortoises. Sometimes, though, the 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.080 tortoises will just get on the path and you have 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.560 to find your way around them, and uh, they don't 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:21.440 necessarily like that, but no, we we kept our distance, um, 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:23.520 and and you want to keep your distance because yeah, 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.040 if you get a little too close, they're gonna stop 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.880 interacting with their environment for a little bit. And if 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:30.480 you don't want to watch that, you want to watch 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.960 them eat and and rampage around and uh, you know 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:39.040 occasionally have these fabulous stare downs between two males which 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:40.839 I don't know, we may we may describe this later, 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.520 So maybe I shouldn't get into that just yet. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.120 we can talk about the mock fights later on. So 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.839 the Galapa ghost tortoise is I think you would say 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:55.760 originally the dominant land herbivore of the Galapagos Islands, which 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.279 makes them kind of unique because there's pretty much nowhere, 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:03.000 nowhere else us on Earth now where the dominant land 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:07.440 herbivore is a reptile. Uh So, these are very unique 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:11.120 and beautiful creatures, and the Galapos tortoise stands out so 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.919 much among the endemic fauna that it's actually the origin 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.160 of the archipelago's name in one way or another. There's 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.000 a little bit of nitpicking on that, but basically it 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:25.240 goes like this. By the fifteen seventies, these islands had 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.600 already appeared on at least a couple of European maps. 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.600 The one I saw named was by a Flemish cartographer 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:37.040 named Abraham or Talias, and it named the islands Insula 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:41.320 de los Galapagos or meaning Islands of the Tortoises. Now, 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:46.200 the nitpicking about the terminology I've read is what exactly 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:50.920 the word galapago or Galapagos originally meant. According to a 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.039 book that I'm going to reference multiple times in this episode, 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:58.600 Galapagos and Natural History, second Edition by John Creature and 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.680 Kevin Loft Lend from Princeton University Press that editions out 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:06.320 just two. They write that the origin of the name 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:10.040 of the islands is an old Spanish word, galapago, which 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.840 was a name for a specific type of saddle. So 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:15.800 there's like, you know, a saddle you'd use on a horse. 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.880 I guess that has a kind of upturned front. That 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.720 was a galapago. And some, but not all, of the 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:27.760 Galapagos tortoises have saddle shaped shells. Others have a more 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.640 straightforward dome. And we can talk about the evolutionary reasons 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:35.000 for those differences later on. But when Tamas de Brelonga 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:37.880 landed on the islands in fifteen thirty five, a story 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:40.640 we talked about in the previous episode. After this, he 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.800 wrote a letter to the king in which he observed 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.679 describing the animals of the island. He observed Muccio's lobos 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:53.040 marinos meaning many sea lions, tortugas meaning sea turtles, iguanas, 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:57.160 and Galapagos, and the author's right that this is probably 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.800 a reference to the tortoises and their saddle shaped shells 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.520 rather than to literal saddles being on the island. This 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.640 is a solid observation that thankfully still holds true today 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:14.560 Muccio's lobos Marinosto is iguanas and uh and and tortoises. Yes, yeah, 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.000 the seed line, I mean the Muccio lobos marinos. Uh. 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.520 That was probably the most astounding of all when you're 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:24.880 near the coast, because they're everywhere, and they'll see sometimes laying. 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.240 They'll be like a male that's come up and he's 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:31.040 like laying in the street, or they they love park benches. 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:33.320 There are a lot of fun to wide well. The 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:35.480 difference in the Spanish name. I guess if it's lobo 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.439 marino that would mean sea wolf, not sea lion, right, 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:42.600 But that that heightens the kind of implicit comedy of 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.360 naming these animals after what you would think of as 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.880 a more actively voracious land predator, whereas you know, I 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.920 guess when they're on the land, they're not quite so threatening. 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:54.439 Is maybe a wolf for a lion would seem yeah, 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.040 I mean, well, on one hand, yeah, you have some 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:58.800 of the little tiny islands there as least one that's 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.480 named for the wolf for the lobos, and of course 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.000 that's why, because the sea lions are hanging out there, 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.920 and yeah, on the on the on the beach, they're 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.560 they're often quite docile, and you see people getting way 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.280 too close to them in some cases. But the big males, 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.640 of course are very territorial about hanging onto their bit 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.200 of property and their um and their females. Uh you know, 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.240 they're their their beach real estate, and so there of 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:28.679 course always they're continuously loudly um sending the alarm and 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.520 occasionally chasing off other males. So there's there's a lot 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:33.880 of drama if you just sit back and watch that 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.120 the sea lions, and I imagine that listeners from other 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.199 parts of the world can attest to this as well. Yes, yes, 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.120 keep your distance, folks, I mean, observe, but but there's 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.960 no reason to get in the sea lions space, though 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:49.160 sometimes in my experience of sea lion will come for 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.600 your space. I was just seated away from sea lions 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.920 and then here comes this female and she's just howling 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.560 about something and insists on taking my spot on a 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:00.679 log and I'm like this, you're the chairs. And then 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:02.120 she just hangs out on the log for a few 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.240 minutes and then leaves it. I don't know. So you're 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.920 just trying to make a point. So if you have 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.880 never seen the Galapagos tortoises before. You can easily find 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.480 lots of pictures of them, but to briefly describe the adults, 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.320 there are many different species scattered across the different islands. 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:22.200 Maybe we can get into the exact numbers on that 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.720 in a bit, but generally what they all have in 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:28.439 common is that they're very large. They have large shells, 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:32.480 some species with rounded dome tops, others with the saddle 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.120 shape that Burlonga probably observed, which are typically turned up 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.640 in the front to have a kind of big notch 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:44.400 above the animal's head and neck. They have long, dry, 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:48.920 wrinkly necks which are surprisingly slim, almost I dare say 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.880 snake like in a way. They have blunt, round snouts 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:58.200 and a beak like mouth with no teeth, and everywhere 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.199 you can see their their skin. In between the shell 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.199 parts there is typically a lot of leathery, wrinkly flesh, 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.240 which just makes them look like old people. Yeah, they 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.680 have this kind of appearance of of a cute, shriveled 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:16.000 old person. Vase. Uh, They're they're very They're very sweet 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.040 too to look at. Um. It's it's it's kind of 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:23.360 hard to to not anthropomorphize them as such. Even in 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.880 and that of course, can become complicated when you start 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.240 considering like the full range of their um, of their 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.400 lifestyle and the way that they they live and reproduce 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.520 and so forth. Uh. It never pays to anthropomorphizes creatures 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:40.360 too much. Yeah. Now, one thing many of us today 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:42.760 might not appreciate, even if you go to the Galapagos 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.560 today or if you see you know, good nature documentary 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:50.600 footage from there, is how many tortoises there were when 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:54.479 people first arrived, before the animals had any natural predators 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.760 other than the threat post hatchlings by the Galapagos hawk. Uh, 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:03.040 this place was swarming with tortoises. And to try to 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.200 get a picture of that, uh, I wanted to cite 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:09.880 some some basically math work that Creature in Laughlin do 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:14.080 in their book. So they're talking about the reproductive rates 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:17.640 of these tortoises. So they say, if if a female 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:22.720 tortoise has more than two young that survive into adulthood, 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.680 the tortoise population will grow, so she has replaced both 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.320 her and her mate, and if she has more than one, 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.640 the population will grow. And they say, now, consider that 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.720 a female tortoise may conservatively lay five to tin eggs 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:43.080 annually for perhaps eighty years or more. So just uh, 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:47.000 for a very conservative estimate, they say, Okay, imagine she 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.560 averages one annual clutch and there's just three eggs in it. 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.800 That's kind of a small estimate. But there's just three 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.600 eggs per clutch. That's more than two hundred eggs in 0:12:55.640 --> 0:13:00.320 a single adult female tortoises lifetime. Uh, they say, realist stically, 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.960 the numbers probably a multiple of that. So they're gonna 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.920 have a lot of young and there before humans arrive 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.240 and bring their invasive species with them, before they bring 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.240 dogs and pigs and stuff. There is not significant predation 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.679 at any life cycle part of the life cycle of 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.280 a tortoise. Uh. There's some minor predation by like hawks 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.480 of the babies, but most of them are going to 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:29.000 grow and become reproducing adults. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Amazing. 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.120 I asked one of the guides about, you know, how 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.040 long are the females reproductive? Because you see some very 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:37.600 he was pointed that my guide here was pointing out 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.360 the various really old tortoises. But because you can sort 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.240 of tell by looking at the shells the way that 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:44.880 um the line, like for a while, you can sort 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:46.800 of it's not like you can count the rings exactly, 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.240 but you can sort of see the rings in the 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.480 patterns on their shell. But eventually there's kind of like 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.520 a smoothing out that occurs, and those are the really 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.720 old ones. Um And and the guy was like, yeah, 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:02.199 we're we're not entirely sure, but it seems like they're 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:06.680 reproductively active for pretty much most of their lives, which 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:18.400 is the astounding thank thank Yeah, it's it's amazing. And 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:21.080 so the authors of this book end up concluding that 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:25.360 before humans arrived and and brought these invasive predators with 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.800 them and started harvesting the tortoises themselves, which is a 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:31.840 sad fact we'll talk about in a moment um, the 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:37.440 tortoises were just just profuse. They were everywhere. They say, 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.240 there's a conservative estimate of a total population of two 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.520 hundred and fifty thousand tortoises just on this small group 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:47.880 of islands. But of course today, um, all of these 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:52.320 tortoise populations are at least vulnerable, and some are up 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.680 to critically endangered. And and that's after a significant bounce 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:00.000 back in some cases for you know, after conservation effort, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:04.280 it's kicked in. So what happened to these tortoises. Well, 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.360 one thing that happened is uh is something Darwin talks 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.160 about in his Passage and Voyage of the Beagle. Before 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.400 he even really gets to ecological observations about the tortoises, 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:19.560 he writes at length about people eating them. So, in 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:23.440 describing the small human colony on what was then Charles 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:27.560 Island what today is called Floriana Island, so Darwin writes, 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.160 in the woods there are many wild pigs and goats. 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:33.680 Now remember those are not native to the islands, but 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.640 introduced by humans. Darwin goes on, But the staple article 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:41.720 of animal food is supplied by the tortoises. Their numbers 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.120 have of course been greatly reduced in this island, but 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.960 the people yet count on two days hunting, giving them 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:49.680 food for the rest of the week. It is said 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:53.160 that formerly single vessels have taken away as many as 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.400 seven hundred, and that the ship's company of a frigate 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:00.800 some years since brought down in one day two tortoises 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.880 to the beach. And this brings us to a very 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:06.480 sad fact about the human use of tortoises. Here that 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.760 tortoises were of course very good meat sources for sailing 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:13.440 vessels um, but this was especially due to the fact 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.760 that because turtles have a very slow metabolism, and they 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:21.520 could be loaded into the ship alive and then would 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.160 survive for an extremely long time without food or water 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.480 in the hold. And it's important to remember that, of course, 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.520 ships at the time didn't have refrigerators or freezers or 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.760 other sophisticated food preservation techniques beyond things like you know, 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.640 the nuclear options salting. Yeah. Yeah, So this is this 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.680 is quite sad to picture because on one hand, it's 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.080 it's not like these tortoises were wandering around on deck. No, 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.200 they they were stuffed below i think generally upside down 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:54.960 and just stored away as living casks of food because 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.440 they could live for up to a year without food 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:59.880 or water, which is just crazy to think about, but 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.600 also just unimaginally cruel to imagine them down there. And 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.200 on top of this, one of the other troublesome things 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:11.359 about this for the tortoises is that the sailors would 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:13.840 tend to grab the tortoises they could easily carry back 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.480 to the ship, which meant that they tended to focus 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.239 on the smaller tortoises and leave the bigger ones. This 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:23.199 meant that they were favoring female tortoises over male tortoises, 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.040 and I guess to a certain extent also younger male tortoises, 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.399 but certainly skewing more towards female tortoises, thus destabilizing the 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:32.760 species even more than if they had managed more of 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:37.000 a fifty fifty split between the tortoise genders. Yeah. So, 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.240 unfortunately a lot of tortoises were removed from the islands 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:44.920 that way, but also they just remained a a live 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:49.080 meat source for hunting by the locals. And Darwin tells 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.760 many interesting stories about this. Uh. For example, he writes 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.919 about a time that he went up to one of 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.520 the highland regions of one of the islands, and he 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:00.920 hung out in a hovel that had been built by 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.960 two men there who were who spent their their time 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.800 hunting tortoises. And so he visits these guys and he 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.880 sleeps there in the hovel one night. Um and what 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:14.160 did he eat while he was there, Well, exclusively tortoise meat. 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.520 That was the entire menu, about which he says, quote 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:22.080 the breastplate roasted as the gauchos do carne conquero, which 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.919 I think means meat with leather with the flesh on. 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.200 It is very good, and the young tortoises make excellent soup, 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:33.040 but otherwise the meat, to my taste, is indifferent. Well, 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.560 there you go. Also taking harvesting the young tortoises. That's 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:40.160 great as well, but they apparently these these the adult tortoises, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.080 are an amazing food source because of their immense size, 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.440 and Darwin recounts the story told to him by a Mr. Lawson, 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.000 who is an Englishman who was vice governor of the 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:54.600 Charles Island Colony, saying that some tortoises, when caught, required 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.000 six to eight men just to lift them off the 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.800 ground and would provide up to two hundred pounds of 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:04.440 me eat. Darwin also later describes a strange operation performed 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:06.440 by the hunters. He says that you know they didn't 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:11.119 always kill a tortoise. He said that while the tortoises 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.639 meat is used both fresh and salted. Uh, the tortoises 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.760 are also important for providing oil. That's right, reptile lard 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.520 and oil that I think could be used for for 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:26.120 food purposes. But also for just like like like lamp purposes. 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.399 I believe. Yeah, it's it's said that in the old days, 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.840 the larger towns of the Galapagos would have their streets 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.760 would have been lit with tortoise oil. Bizarre though, I 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.119 guess we're more familiar with that from like whale oil 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.160 and stuff. Um. But yeah, So if if a tortoise 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.040 will not provide enough oil, it is apparently not worth 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.919 killing to the hunters. So Darwin writes, quote, when a 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.399 tortoise is caught, the man makes a slit in the 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.120 skin near its tail so as to see inside its 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.640 body whether the fat under the dorsal plate is thick. 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.480 If it's not, the animal is liberated, and it is 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.080 said to recover soon from this strange operation. In order 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.920 to secure the tortoise, it is not sufficient to turn 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.639 them like a turtle, for they are often able to 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.320 get on their legs again. And I think this is 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.920 something that will come up later, because there are some 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:16.000 situations where these tortoises often do end up flipped on 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.159 their backs, even under natural circumstances, and they need to 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.680 be able to flip back over and get back to business. 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.760 I did not get to see that happen. Thankfully, I 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.600 don't want to see a tortoise in distress. No, we're 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:30.000 not going to ask you the quiz from the blade 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.520 runner test. So what do these tortoises eat to grow 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.560 so big? Well, it turns out in reality, they just 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.120 they eat plants. These are entirely herbivorous creatures. There are 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:45.280 turtles and tortoises that eat other things, but these tortoises 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:49.720 are entirely plant eaters, and so especially in the lowlands, 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:55.280 especially the the saddleback tortoises, will eat succulent cactus. This 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.600 is something Darwin identifies. He says they especially favor the 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:00.920 cactus if they live in the low and arid parts 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.040 of the islands where there is little or no water. 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:07.040 Of course the cactus becomes a principal water source, but 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.199 also they eat tree leaves and berries as well as 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:14.439 green lichen UH and their diet somewhat depends on which 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.359 species they are and which part of the islands which 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.320 microclimate they inhabit. Like the ones that live higher up 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:23.880 in the UH the highlands with more lush vegetation probably 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:27.600 feed on more leafy stuff, and the ones that live 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.320 more in the arid regions probably feed on more cactus. Yeah, 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:35.000 the ones I got to actually observe in the in 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.359 the wild as it were on San Cristobule and on 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:42.480 Santa Cruz Island. They they were definitely eating the leafy 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.440 green stuff. But I got to see plenty of the cacti, 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:50.040 which of course have coexisted with the tortoises long enough 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:53.720 that they have they have particular adaptations, like they have 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:57.560 been changed by cohabitation with the tortoise as well. And 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:00.199 the most remarkable of these are the ones that they 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.600 basically seemed to grow up like trees and then branch 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:07.040 out because they're trying to reach and they're reaching an 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:11.760 optimal height at which they're hopefully above the reach of 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.920 the tortoise. There is one type of cactus that there's 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:17.000 a great picture of in this book by Creature in 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.000 Laughlin I've been talking about. It's called a candelabray cactus, 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.040 and I thought it was beautiful because the branches look 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:29.320 to me like giant green tarantula legs. They kind of 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:32.680 have these lobes that look like little hairy legs segments 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:35.440 on a large spider. Yeah. Yeah, And it's a nice 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.080 picture too, because you gotta you gotta flamingo in there. Um. 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:42.399 I did get to see a few flamingos on Seymour Island, 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:46.720 I believe. But the tortoises just generally seemed to eat 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:50.240 all kinds of foods that would look to us quite hostile. So, 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.200 of course the the ones in the lowlands are gonna 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:56.760 eat a lot of cactus, but they also apparently eat 0:22:56.840 --> 0:23:01.200 plenty of poison apple or men's nillo, which is toxic. 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:05.160 It has a sap that is poisonous to other creatures. 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:07.919 But uh, and I think it can can cause blistering 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.360 if you touch it. But apparently the tortoises just chow 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:14.399 down on this stuff, doesn't bother them. Yeah. On on 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:18.520 San Cristoble Island, of the area where we're encountering the tortoises, 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:21.760 they had signs everywhere, do not touch the apples, do 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:24.800 not certainly do not eat the apples. Leave this to 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:28.560 the tortoises. Now, coming back to Darwin's writing on the tortoises, 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:32.560 he also observes their relationship with water. He says they're notable, 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.439