The Extinction Of The Tortoise In Galapagos

In order to analyze the character archetypes for this assignment, I chose The Tortoise and The Hare, a fairy tale found at Animated Fairy Tales for Children. Overall, this tale falls into the classical animal archetype. These animals are used to teach us a moral lesson that we can be successful if we do very things steadily, thoughtfully, and carefully. The tortoise and the hare are foil characters, whose views about life are completely different. The tortoise is an archetype of a humble, friendly, smart, and careful person. The tortoise always does everything in a slow, thoughtful, and steady manner; he knows how to control his emotions despite the hare keeps teasing him about “being so slow.” The hare is the archetype of a mean, boastful,

Mote’s Sea Turtle Conservation and Research Program has established and continues long-term studies of these sea turtles by recording copious details of each and every sea turtle nest that lie within the areas in which they patrol. The researchers mark each nest with stakes and yellow flagging tape and record specific scientific data about each nest. The same will be done on the

This rare turtle found in the United States is the smallest species of turtle in the United States. It can only grow up to 4.5 inches long! This tiny turtle is in two very small distinct populations that are approximately 250 miles away from each other. These turtles are very recognizable by the orange patches on their head. The National Fish and Wildlife foundation says, “In the last 30 years, these turtles have disappeared from more than 50 percent of the wetlands it once inhabited.” I believe we should be resurrecting more of the land that they used to live on.

Naturalists believe that Santa Fe once had its own species of tortoise, and the renewed effort to reintroduce the tortoise to the island has proven effective. In a 2016 survey of the island, the 165 reptiles that we found all appeared healthy and well fed, indicating that the entire population was moving ahead.

The Graptemys caglei, also known as the Cagle’s Map Turtle, is an endangered turtle species found in San Antonio, Texas and along the Guadalupe River. It identifies easily by the pattern on its shell which resembles an aerial view topography, as well as its spiked shell edges, which are not as sharp as other map turtles of the same genus. Although the Cagle’s Map Turtle has natural predators pose a threat to the individual turtles’ lives, the predators are not a greater threat than habitat disturbances created by humans. Unfortunately, this species suffered a significant drop in population since the mid-1970 through changes in its habitat disallow support of a larger population of the turtles(van Dijk, P. P., 2011).

The Blanding turtle are freshwater medium sized turtle usually found in The Great Lakes Regions in USA and in Canada. They are from the omnivorous species and usually eat crayfish, small animals, and plants. Their life histories traits occurs between April and November, as May and April tend to be more for mating and Early June for nesting. Less than half of these females will actually go on to reproducing. Many of these turtles can actually live up to sixty to a hundred years in age. Though these turtles spend a majority of time in the aquatics they also come on to the mainland. This is were the problem starts to occur and this is why the Blanding sea turtles are currently threatened and may soon be extinct. It is because of us humans that these species are currently facing habitat loss, have threatened nesting areas, and are unable to get from nesting areas to the lakes because of manmade roads. Why should we as humans care so much if these Blanding’s turtles go extinct? These turtles play an important

As more tourist being visiting Panama and the surrounding islands, the pygmy sloths are at an increase risk of endangerment. Due to the fact that this species of sloth can only be found on the Isla Escudo de Verguas it is imperative that the government of Panama recognizes the endangerment of the pygmy sloth and places more security on the island. The fate of the pygmy sloth depends largely on whether or not additional steps are taken to protect Escudo de Veraguas. The island’s current protection status leaves open the possibility of future development and is vague as to who may develop it. Declaring the island a wildlife refuge or national park would protect not only the pygmy sloths, but also the other unique species found on the island.

By comparing the observed heterozygosity of two Blanding’s turtle populations, it was determined that Area 1 had significantly greater observed heterozygosity than Area 2. The lower observed heterozygosity found in Area 2 may have been caused by the founder effect, resulting in a loss of genetic variation. The founder effect occurs when a new population is established by a small group of migrants from a larger population. The founder effect involves a random sampling of alleles during the reproduction of consecutive generations; when a small population is isolated, it may amplify the loss of genetic variation as individuals may become increasingly genotypically similar after each subsequent generation. Eventually, the alleles may become fixed

The Greater Antilles is comprised of Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola (island south of Florida) as these islands were the center of focus to study and collect Anolis lizards how these different species of lizards lived and how they were related to each other. The information gathered from the data table contained the identification number, the variant of the Anolis lizard, the country that specific lizard lives in, and the body shape for that lizard. As aforementioned in the report, the body types included within the table are: Tree crown, Upper trunk/canopy, Twig, Mid trunk, Lower trunk/ground, and Grass/bush. The patterns displayed in terms of the body shape the lizards have are related to the habitat they live in. For example,

Also known as the Argentine tortoise, the southern wood tortoise, and la tortuga terrestre patagónica [translation: the Patagonia terrestrial turtle], the Chaco tortoise is a rare species endemic to Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay in South America. Formally described by British zoologist John Edward Gray (18??–18??) in 1870, and originally assigned to the genus Testudo, then to the genus Geochelone, the Chaco tortoise currently resides in the South American tortoise genus Chelonoidis.

In “Can the Desert Be Saved?” Mackenzie Carro explains that desert tortoises may go extinct but their is a scientist willing to help. Desert tortoises were and still are being eaten by ravens in the Mojave Desert. The reason their are so many ravens in the Mojave Desert is because of human pollution like throwing bags and other garbage ravens can use to their advantage. But tortoises don't have to worry because a scientist named Tim Shields is here to help. He is using advanced such as fake baby tortoises that spray a bad smell, lasers to distract and get rid of the ravens and more. Scientist like shields want to help the tortoises . “Technology is a powerful tool, but it’s up to us to figure out how to use it” said Tim Shields.

Furthermore, one of my favorite days during the program was going to the Maui Ocean Center. It is known to be the nation’s largest tropical reef aquarium. This allows people from all over the world to be able to view Hawaii’s beautiful undersea world all at once. Many of the animals that are held captive at the Maui Ocean center are mainly found in Hawaii. The Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles exhibit truly caught my attention at the Ocean center. They have a education outreach program called Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle Educational Loan Program that helps strengthen the population of this particular specie. There was a study done to see how well the captive bred green turtles were adapting to wildlife. The information obtained during 267-481 days of remote monitoring using satellite tracking gave strong support to the premise of successful adaptation to the wild by the four captive- reared juvenile green turtles released by the Maui Ocean Center (Balazs, Parker, Gorman, Luecke, Pawloski, 2015) . Current research in Hawaii shows the Hawaiian green turtle population is increasing since they have been protected by federal law (Maui Ocean Center,

Now, as most may know sea turtles are both marine and land animals depending on what stage of life they are in. Which means that they need to be able to go on land during certain stages of their lives. One of the main reasons why a sea turtle will go on to land is to lay their eggs. Within the last few years this has become harder and harder for the already endangered species. It

Sea turtles have been around the world for over one hundred million years. Sea turtles are important because “they help maintain the health of sea grass beds and coral reefs that benefit commercially valuable species such as shrimp, lobster, and tuna”( ). Even though they have been around for so long, they have made a huge population decline. They were at one point on the verge to extinction. Sea turtles have been classified as endangered since 1982 (D. Elliot 2013). Because of help from many organizations to conserve and protect the sea turtles, their population is now growing. “Today, all sea turtles found in the United States waters are federally listed as endangered” (Sea Turtle Conservancy). Every year there are thousands of baby

While on the Galápagos Islands, Darwin kept notebooks about all the species there, and he noticed the variety of tortoises on the island who were essential in explaining his theory of evolution. There are several species of tortoise present on the Galápagos Islands that are all very closely related, but slightly different. There are eleven presently surviving subspecies of Galápagos tortoises; furthermore, six of the eleven are found on different islands in the archipelago, and the other five are all found on a single island on five separate volcanoes with their own mini-ecosystems (PNAS). Although all of the species of Galápagos tortoise is different, they each have small differences that can include maximum adult size, shell shape, and the length of the neck and limbs. The tortoises of the islands are most closely related to the Chaco tortoises along the western coast of South America, and they most likely came to the Galápagos by “rafting” across the water (PNAS). Similar to the tortoises, Darwin observed that the Finches on the islands also had changed to match the environment. Spread among the islands were fourteen subspecies of finch whose