They seem insignificant compared to the rest of the wildlife but the crabs here are beautiful. And I don't mean they go really well with a fresh salad - although they quite possibly would do.
On the day of our arrival we noticed a small black crab on the rocks and then realized that there were hundreds. Since then they have been everywhere and no more so than when we disembarked on Chinese Hat island where the orangey-red Sally Light Foot crabs teem all over the black volcanic rocks in one of the poorest displays of camouflage that we've seen here. They are, as their name suggests, light footed, hopping sideways from pool to pool. The colours on the shell are vivid and make them the most memorable of the hundred or so varieties of crab here. They shed their soft shell around three times each year, crawling out of the old shell and leaving it behind while the new one grows over a period of 3-4 days.
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| Sally light foot crabs mating |
By contrast nearby little hermit crabs scuttle by in shells which they have found lying around - either from a snail or just the sort of sea shell one finds on the beach. It is odd to see what appears to be a snail zipping across the ground until you realise that the shell contains not a slug-like creature but a small eight-legged crustacean in a hurry.
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| Heading to dry land |
After our final snorkeling trip, the Beagle took us back to Santa Cruz island where we walked to Dragon Hill through thick vegetation and past small lagoons where, unlike the dry climates of Chinese Hat and Bartolome, things are much more humid. Large Galapagos land iguanas frequently blocked the paths looking indifferent to our presence, while above in the trees we saw some of the typical bird life of these parts - finches, yellow warblers and mockingbirds.
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| Land iguana lunches on cactus |
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