Lava mountains rising the ocean floor.

Swimming dragons spitting from their nostrils.

Weird spiny plants and tortured landscape.

This may sound like the stuff of a science fiction movie, but it's the true story of evolution and adaptation in the Galapagos Islands.

Funding for the Desert Speaks was provided by Desert Program Partners.

Representing concerned viewers making a financial commitment to the education about and preservation of deserts.

And by The Stonewall Foundation.

As a desert rat, I'm used to seeing the adaptation of plants and animals to an arid environment.

Charles Darwin wasn't.

He lived in England and he was deeply impressed with what he saw in the Galapagos Islands, the adaptation of a wide array of organisms to that equatorial desert.

The oldest of the islands are those closest to the South American continent.

The farther west you go, the younger and more spectacular the islands become.

If we're lucky, my friends and I will get to see a marvel of evolution and adaptation in the form of an ancient reptile on Fernandina Island.

This species, the marine iguana that lived for millions of years before that island rose from the sea.

Boy, this looks like some real fresh lava .

just like it was, flowed just a few weeks ago.

Yeah, this island is very new.

Actually it's considered the baby island in the Galapagos, the youngest.

It's no more than 700,000 years old.

It's not even a million.

Most of this looks like pahoehoe, which is a geological term but it comes from a Hawaiian word for ropy and we even call it ropy pahoehoe.

It looks like syrup which flowed down and then hardened.

So here on Fernandina Island we have a trail of the pass in between a nesting area.

You can see right here.

So they're on both sides here.

Both sides.

Right here on this side.

So we have a nest of marine iguanas.

The marine iguanas stay right here on the coast, we can see them all over on the lava.

And this is probably as far inland as they get, just to nest here.

Exactly.

Yeah, because their food resource is out there, the algae, sometimes called sea lettuce.

It's green like lettuce.

Ulva lactucae.

One of the difference in between the marine iguanas and the land iguanas are basically the behavior and the color and also the shape of their bodies.

For example the land iguanas, they never go into the water.

They stay always inland eating vegetation like cactus and plants.

In the case of marine iguanas they are going to the water.

It's the only iguana in the whole planet that goes under the water.

These iguanas they can go like about eight meters down or maybe more.

And they can stay like about one hour under the water.

And the coloration is different.

Land iguanas they have light color, kind of yellow brownish color.

Marine iguanas are very dark cause they're going to the water and they have to absorb the heat from the sun so they have to warm up their bodies.

Marine iguanas are going to the water specifically to eat algae.

That's the only reason why they go.

The iguanas they undulate the tails, they don't use their arms or legs.

They use only the tail so their arms and legs are just attached to the body and they undulate their tails like alligators for example.

Basically young ones, the juveniles, so they don't go too deep.

Just they wait for the low tide and the algae is exposed and they can eat then.

And then the big ones probably don't have to dive as deep to get to the algae beds during low tide.

Yeah.

The males are quite bigger than the females and they have very high crest.

The upper part of the crest is much higher and thicker.

The females are much smaller size and also the crest is very short and thin.

These marine iguanas they drink salt water as well so to get rid of the salt they have a gland in the nose and they spit salt water through the nose.

And it looks like dragons that's why the whalers or pirates they used to call them the dragon.

So this is the head of a dead iguana of course.

Right here is a very perfect hole.

This is the place where the gland, which is called the third eye of the marine iguana, is located.

So it's a perfect hole and that connects directly to the brain.

So all the teeth, for example, every single tooth is designed to cut the algae.

These teeth probably evolved from the parent stock that were vegetarians on the mainland.

So real efficient for clipping vegetation.

But another thing that's interesting about these is that real flat snout.

Exactly.

Because they dive down and they grab a hold with their strong claws cause there's currents here.

And that way they can get their face right up against the rock where the algae grows and graze on it.

If you take a look right here, so have like three points, it's like a little hand well designed to cut the algae.

So this iguana is very, very well designed and the scientists they believe that took at least 20 million years in the process of the evolution system.

The marine iguanas of the Galapagos Islands are a species far older than any other islands that are here now.

These islands originated from this black lava that exploded from the surface of the ocean, grew and then over the millennia, the millions of years, eroded away.

The iguanas are able to find out when it's time from a dying island to a newer one and life for them goes on and on and on.

The Galapagos are essentially islands of fire and the fire comes form the volcanic activity.

And the Galapagos were formed over a magma plume and it's basalt material, real dark, rich in iron.

And when it erodes, eventually there's a, it oxidizes and you have a reddish material as well.

Here on Fernindina, it's very, very recent and so the lavas, the basalt lavas here are very, very dark.

The sea floor is over 10,000 feet deep at this point.

And this iron rich magma, which is called basalt, wells to the surface, forms big peaks and what we're seeing here in the Galapagos are the top of these peaks.

[animal sounds] Here in the Galapagos there's only one species of cormorant and it's flightless.

It's ancestor made its way here to the Galapagos many, many thousands of years ago, if not million.

And once here found that there were no land predators so they didn't' have to worry about nesting away from predators.

Also the fish food resource that they depend on was plentiful everywhere on the island so they didn't have to fly from one area to another to find food.

And if you don't need wings, why expend the energy to maintain wings so they've become useless since they propel themselves through the water chasing fish with their webbed hind feet.

And so they now have just little stubby things, remnants of wings that were capable of flight in the past.

[animal sounds] The cormorants pair up and they nest near the sea because their food resource is there.

And they make their nest out of any debris that they can find, twigs, sea urchins, algae, dried algae, and the male typically brings more nesting material to the female and she arranges it.

They can have anywhere from two to three eggs typically and they take turns incubating the eggs and then once the chicks are there, they take turns going out for fish and feeding the chicks.

[animal sounds] That's the lava cactus over there, the Brachycereus.

Am I right?

Brachycereus they are called.

And those are endemic to the Galapagos Islands and those are called pioneer plants because they are the first ones who colonize a new lava or a new place like here.

That is a volcano that typically is called a shield volcano but it's really different from what you would see in Hawaii.

It's much steeper and those are much more gradual.

Well, the Hawaiian shield volcanoes and the ones here are made of basalt, iron rich basalt.

But there's other minerals that affect the viscosity of it and this one flows more like honey.

And you just have over a long period of time, different events.

A flow will occur, then there'll be a quiet period and then another one and it just builds up and builds up adding layer after layer after layer, thus the name composite volcano.

The compositions of different events build it up.

Now careful, Yar, it could go at anytime.

So we've got to walk super quietly here.

Oh, I've been keeping my eye on it.

Okay.

That's how, in my imagination, the Galapagos Islands looked.

It took awhile but finally there is the vision I had of the Galapagos.

[music] Marine iguanas have demonstrated their ability to survive through adaptation.

Plants face an equally tough challenge.

They must adapt or die out.

[music] You come to the Galapagos for a lot of things but not necessarily for this kind of plant.

Well, I love these plants, David.

They remind me very much of the arid lands where I work.

But I agree.

Most people will not come for these craggy, dry, leafless plants.

So many plants made it to the islands but was only one individual that needed cross pollination for example.

So it didn't bring the pollinators or another plant so it didn't make it.

There was no way to do the cross pollination so, boom they're gone.

And at the end of their life there's nothing to replace them.

One bunch of plants that's different here are their prickly pears.

They're strange and wonderful.

They have a single trunk and to me they look with a much denser cover of spines on the trunk.

So look how intimidating that is.

No lizard or reptile is going to be able to chomp away at that nice soft fleshy trunk matter.

It is soft.

Without those spines they probably couldn't make it.

So they keep the spines because someone is trying to eat them.

It's interesting because in the islands animals and plants usually lose their defenses.

Flightless cormorants are one prime example of that.

And most trees lose their spines or their toxins.

There's no point in having them here.

But if you see spines on the trunk of this, for sure it's because someone is trying to munch on it.

Very good protection.

[music] On the island inland and along the beach are the lava lizards.

There are several species.

Some are specific to certain islands but many, many of the islands have lava lizards.

It's interesting that here in the Galapagos it's the female that's more colorful.

It has all the good color on its throat.

Most places elsewhere it's the male that is usually the more colorful one.

Exactly.

This is one of the exceptions that we have.

So the female is who has the colors and the male is just not very colorful but it's much bigger than the female.

Kind of reversed sexual dimorphism in a sense.

Darwin's name is not only associated with natural history but with some of his escapades as well, as we see on Isabela, the largest of the Galapagos Islands.

So this trail will take us to a nice lake, which is called Darwin's Lake.

So the bay is now, oh, a good 150, 200 feet below us.

Sometimes you can't see it for these trees.

It's quite different from the other islands in the way it looks.

That plant right there they're called muyuyo.

Muyuyo.

It's blooming now.

I'm sort of surprised in the Galapagos with all its wonders that these are the showiest flowers.

There aren't any others that are really bright and pretty.

We don't have many, many colors in flowers in native and endemic species.

You know, we have only yellow, white and purple, the dominant colors.

Muyuyo.

That's a beautiful name.

Muyuyo.

[music] I suspect that Darwin didn't have this nice wooden staircase built for him.

All right, top of the hill.

Oh, this must have a ring of tuff around it.

Ah!

This is the famous Darwin's Lake.

So Darwin, he thought and the crew, that this was a freshwater lake cause this is seven percent high, the salinity.

If that water is seven percent salt, which is twice as much as seawater, is there any life in it?

There is a kind of crustaceans there but not a lot.

Is the level of the water in the lake the same as the level of the water in the ocean?

It's almost the same, yes.

Okay.

So it's actually ocean water that filters in here, then.

Okay.

The waters drop here and evaporate and concentrate the salt.

So it always has, this lake always has water in it?

Always.

This is known as Darwin's Lake, but not because of a particularly happy point in Darwin's life.

He wrote, "The day was overpoweringly hot and the lake looked clear and blue.

I hurried down the cindery slope and choked with dust eagerly tasted the water.

But to my sorrow I found it salt as brine. "

Next to Darwin's Lake in Tagus Cove Isabela Island is the place where for many years long time ago the pirates and whalers used to visit this place and as a tradition was to carve graffiti here like letting know that they have been here in the Galapagos Islands, like 1836 which is one year after the visit of Charles Darwin.

In the Galapagos we spend little time on land and much more at sea.

But it's worth it for the unusual life we find.

Penguins.

There's penguins in the water right here.

You can see their heads right above the water.

They're kind of floating on the surface.

I am so amazed that here we are in the equator and we have penguins right here, the Galapagos Penguins found nowhere else in the world.

And it must be that there's cold water.

The Cromwell Current, the Humboldt Current and it's an ideal situation for them.

But it's not where you would expect penguins to be is on the equator.

Yeah, and these are considered endemic species to the Galapagos and are the second smallest penguins in the world.

Yeah, you can see where they're only about 14 inches high.

I can see that there's some young ones.

Young ones have the very clear half ring that is going from the eye to the neck like this.

These guys are great swimmers too.

They swim with their front flippers and go after fish.

They can actually swim down and they feed on fish.

They love anchovies.

Anchovies.

So that's their favorite.

Yes.

[music] [David singing] Light one candle for that little old penguin that lives all alone on the shore.

Light one candle for that little old penguin we'll never him see no more.

Light one candle, light one candle, give him our hearts for a shore and don't let the light go out.

It has lasted for so many years.

Don't the light go out, let it shine through the love in your tears.

The Galapagos penguin typically don't nest in large colonies.

They'll nest in cracks and crevices in the cliff faces and they aggregate, they're social to some extent but not in great numbers.

And they typically have just one chick.

The pelagic birds are birds that feed on fish further out, usually just have one chick cause it takes such an effort to raise them.

This is the last thing that we really had to get and that was the penguins and we saw them.

Right there.

Oh, yeah, right in front of us.

There's one.

He's right on the surface.

There he goes.

So the penguins and the flightless cormorants are the only two birds in the Galapagos that doesn't fly anymore.

That's right.

Both of them are flightless.

[music] Nesting on the black lava rocks in the hot tropical sun gets pretty hot and you can see they're kind of overheating and they're cooling themselves with this gular flutter.

It's like panting and they get air moving and can cool off by fluttering the gular area, the throat area, by moving the pouch like that.

Ah, so they have like their own air conditioning.

Yeah, that's right.

Built in air conditioner in their throat.

Oh, look at all the iguanas, marine iguanas.

[music] The Galapagos Islands are built out of eons of volcanic activity.

Explosions, more explosions, lava flows, ash falls.

The islands build higher and higher but in the end the ocean, the wind and the rain will wear them down.

The ocean digs away at the sides, causes cataclysmic collapses of the cliffs and ultimately nothing will remain as the islands vanish and go under the sea.

[music] Violent mountain building next to the ocean often brings places where huge pieces of stone have collided on top of each other leaving a cave underneath.

We can get deep back into this cave and actually see birds who are roosting in here and even perhaps nesting.

But I have the uneasy feeling that in the first earthquake or volcanic activity that comes back to the island called Isabela in the Galapagos Islands, we're going to be the first to die.

I don't want to camp in here.

[music] About 70,000 visitors arrive each year in the Galapagos.

They jump into boats and disperse to the various islands.

They come here to see the approachable wildlife and view the raw volcanic activity that produced these islands.

The Rio Sonora is a desert river in northwest Mexico.

It carves the landscape, nourishes the crops, and fashions the way of life of peoples who have lived along its bank for thousands of years.

It may be tiny in size but it looms large in history.

Next time on the Desert Speaks.

[natives singing] Funding for the Desert Speaks was provided by Desert Program Partners.

Representing concerned viewers making a financial commitment to the education about and preservation of deserts.