Daphne Major

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Daphne Major is an island just north of Santa Cruz Island and just west of the Baltra Airport in the archipelago Colon, commonly known as the Galápagos Islands. It consists of a tuff crater, devoid of trees, whose rim rises 120 metres above the sea.

Though easily accessible to most visitors to the Galapagos, the national park has highly restricted visits to this island and it is primarily used as a scientific research spot. An intensive study of Darwin's Finches was conducted here by biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant over a period of 20 years. They examined the behaviour and life cycles of finches, with the results strongly supporting Darwin's theory of evolution their efforts were documented in the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Beak of the Finch.

Daphne is home to a variety of other birds including Galápagos Martins, Blue-footed Booby, Masked Booby, Short-eared Owls, Red-billed Tropicbirds and Magnificent Frigatebirds.

[edit] References

• Drought and the Demography of Darwin’s Medium Ground Finches on Isla Daphne Major, Wendy E. Sera, Baylor University. Accessed 2007-04-21.
• Peter R. Grant and B. Rosemary Grant. 1992. Demography and the genetically effective sizes of two populations of Darwin’s finches. Ecology 73(3): 766–784.
• Jonathan Weiner. 1994. The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. ISBN 0-679-40003-6.

[edit] External links

• Daphne Island Information