beautifulbeasts

There aren't just a lot of unusual animals in the Galapagos and an amazing variety of them; they also appear in startling numbers. Vast stretches of sand will be covered by the torpedo shapes of sleeping sea lions. The low, scrubby palo santo forests can contain more boobies and albatrosses than trees. Whole rock faces are colonized by marine iguanas, their black hides distinguished from the lava only by the squiggling grey line of the ridge that runs down their backs.

(Play find the iguana!)

This is an anecdote about a small huddle of marine iguanas on Española Island (aka Hood Island, if you happen to know the older English names). Here they are, dozing happily. Although the sunlight is intense in the Galapagos, which straddle the equator, it is not particularly warm. Marine iguanas are cold-blooded creatures that feed almost exclusively on sea algae, and spending so much time in the cool water means they have to spend that much more time warming up again. This is probably one reason they end up resting in groups; each of them is looking for an optimally warm spot with good sunshine, and there are only so many of those spots to be found.

Sea lions, however, choose their company before their location and seem to have more clearly social goals in mind when they group.

Unfortunately I had run out of shots on my camera when one young female sea lion (about the size of those here) decided that she would bridge the gap and try socializing sea lion-style with marine iguanas.

She heaved her body along the sand, coming at what is a full gallop for a sea lion. It is an awkward, side-to-side motion that you can easily demonstrate for yourself by dropping onto your stomach, leaving your legs inert, and propelling yourself forward one arm-thrust at a time. It can move a sea lion surprisingly fast on land, although graceful it is not.

She announced her intentions with the "eghhhkkk, eghhhkkk, eghhhkkk" grunt that appears to mean, "pay attention to me!" The marine iguanas perhaps had never given much thought to what different sea lion calls mean, and perhaps simply didn't care. They remained dozing in the sun.

"Eghhhkkk, eghhhkkk, eghhhkkk!" Closer.

Indifference.

"Eghhhkkk, eghhhkkk, eghhhkkk!" Almost there. The iguanas weren't noticing her, and she wasn't slowing down.

Then she reached the edge, and this is when I learned that marine iguanas can move pretty quickly too when they have to. There was an iguana directly in her path--and then suddenly there wasn't. He launched himself into the air, his hind legs spinning frantically, leaped over some of his companions, and scrambled over the rest. All of whom still remained sleeping.

The chatty sea lion was startled by the iguana flying past her face into stopping for a moment, but not much longer than that. She yapped out her call again, testing. The iguanas still didn't reply. Evidently she took this to mean that she wasn't trying hard enough. She restarted the non-stop "eghhhkkk"s and flump-waddled around the iguana perimeter.

Unfortunately, she cut it too close to one iguana who must have been lost in his dreams, because he got stepped on. Even a small female sea lion weighs a lot and is a good fifteen times the size of even a large marine iguana.

The insulted iguana reared up, abruptly very awake, pushing his head and shoulders into the air. At first I was afraid he'd been hurt. But when the sea lion shifted to the side slightly and plopped down on her side, contentedly joining the group at last, the iguana didn't move or otherwise seem distressed.

But he was outraged indeed.

Everyone else around him was sleeping. There was no one to see what he did, unless he regarded the humans waiting on his beach with more interest than I sensed. And yet he did not go back to sleep. He was outraged, and this must be expressed. An utterly wrong thing had happened. Perhaps there was nothing he could do about it. Marine iguanas are mild-mannered herbivores who simply do not think of striking other creatures, and the sea lion snoozing next to him was far too big for him to push aside. Perhaps no one else would ever know about this ill-mannered act. The other iguanas, who had not been disturbed, had found no reason to look up from their own rest.

But he was outraged, and nothing could take that away from him. So he held his outraged pose, although he was alone in it.

He was outraged still when we left ten minutes later, and I don't know how much longer he persisted. But somehow I suspect that an iguana's sense of propriety is not easily restored and that their moods are enduring.