
Española or Espanola Island () is the most southerly of the
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands () are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, located around the equator, west of the mainland of South America. They form the Galápagos Province of the Republic of Ecuador, with a population of sli ...
in
Ecuador
Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
, about a 10 to 12-hour trip by boat from
Santa Cruz.
Names
''Española'',
Spanish for "Little
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
", is named for
Hispaniola
Hispaniola (, also ) is an island between Geography of Cuba, Cuba and Geography of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the second-largest by List of C ...
in the
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...
owing to its discovery by
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...
on
his first voyage. The name was changed with several other islands in 1892 during the celebration of the
quadricentennial of Columbus's voyage.
The
English pirate
William Ambrosia Cowley named the island King Charles's Island in 1684 in honor of the then-reigning
monarch
A monarch () is a head of stateWebster's II New College Dictionary. "Monarch". Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest ...
CharlesII of
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. However, the
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...
James Colnett later misunderstood Cowley's maps and accidentally transferred that name to what is now
Floreana Island. Thinking Española undiscovered until that point, he renamed it Hood Island in 1793 in honor of
Admiral Samuel Hood,
Baronet
A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...
of
Catherington and 1st
Baron Hood, later created 1st
Viscount Hood for his success in the
Napoleonic Wars
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Napoleonic Wars
, partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
, image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg
, caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...
.
Geography
Española is one of
Ecuador
Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
's
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands () are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, located around the equator, west of the mainland of South America. They form the Galápagos Province of the Republic of Ecuador, with a population of sli ...
. Located at the extreme southeast of the archipelago, it is considered to be one of the oldest of the islands, having first formed approximately four million
years ago. The climate is generally dry, receiving only a few inches of rain per year.
Wildlife
While Española Island is one of the oldest of the Galápagos Islands, this island is dying, slowly becoming a rocky, barren land with little or no vegetation. Its large bays, however, have soft sand and attract
Galápagos sea lions. A major draw is the
waved albatrosses since, from March to January, almost the entire world population breeds on the island. Another draw is the mating dances of
blue-footed boobies. Two spots are especially popular, Gardner Bay () with its beach and Suarez Point () because of its varied bird-life. This island has its own species of animals, such as the
Hood mockingbird
Hood may refer to:
Covering
Apparel
* Hood (headgear), type of head covering
** Article of academic dress
** Bondage hood, sex toy
* Hoodie, hooded sweatshirt
Anatomy
* Clitoral hood, a hood of skin surrounding the clitoris
* Hood, a flap of ...
, which has a longer and more curved beak than the one on the central islands; the
Española lava lizard; and the
marine iguana
The marine iguana (''Amblyrhynchus cristatus''), also known as the sea iguana, saltwater iguana, or Galápagos marine iguana, is a species of Iguanidae, iguana found only on the Galápagos Islands (Ecuador). Unique among modern lizards, it is a m ...
of the subspecies , which has red markings on its back. There are also
swallow-tailed gulls,
Galapagos hawks, and other birds. The island has been recognized as an
Important Bird Area
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations.
IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...
(IBA) by
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...
.
In January 2020, it was widely reported that a male
Galápagos tortoise
The Galápagos tortoise or Galápagos giant tortoise (''Chelonoidis niger'') is a very large species of tortoise in the genus ''Chelonoidis'' (which also contains three smaller species from mainland South America). The species comprises 15 subsp ...
named
Diego fathered and resurrected the island tortoise population, saving the diminishing species from near extinction.
In popular culture
The
American author Herman Melville
Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works ar ...
mentions the island in his 1854
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...
''
The Encantadas''. The 1982
novel
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
''La Iguana'' by
Spanish author Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa takes place on the island. The novel was later dramatized as the 1988 film ''
Iguana
''Iguana'' (, ) is a genus of herbivorous lizards that are native to tropical areas of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The genus was first described by Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti, J.N. Laurenti in ...
'' by
American director Monte Hellman.
References
Citations
Bibliography
* .
External links
*
Espanola Island*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Espanola Island
Islands of the Galápagos Islands
Seabird colonies
Important Bird Areas of the Galápagos Islands