Nobody actually knows how long Galápagos tortoises live, but estimates are up to 150 years or more. The abundance of tortoises eventually led to the entire region being named the Galápagos Islands. The word "Galápagos" may have been given to the tortoises because in Spain, a "Galápagos" meant a horse saddle, shaped like the shells of some of the first tortoises encountered in the region. Perhaps the most well known resident of the Galápagos Islands is the giant tortoise, the namesake of the archipelago. The tortoises even stand in a special position to make it easier for the small ground finches to reach every nook and cranny of the tortoises leathery skin. On islands with big tortoise populations, finches have developed small, sharp beaks for picking ticks out from under the shells (its pretty hard for tortoises to do it by themselves). For instance, on islands with many trees, some finches have beaks specially designed for breaking up rotten wood to get to insects (the large tree finch). The astounding number of finch sub-species is the result of adaptation to the different food sources available on each of the Galápagos Islands. There are 13 types of finches, including ground: cactus, tree, woodpecker, mangrove, warbler, vegetarian and even a vampire finch. One of the species made famous by Darwins studies is the Galápagos finch. This information ultimately led to his development of the theory of evolution and natural selection. He also made the key observation that some of the species differ slightly from island to island. One of the most intriguing facts he discovered was that many of the species in the Galápagos are endemic, which means they are unique to the islands. Charles Darwin visited the Galápagos in 1832.
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