--- title: The Galápagos: giant tortoises, sea iguanas, Darwin's finches and tame sea lions — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The Galápagos: giant tortoises, sea iguanas, Darwin's finches and tame sea lions», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The Galápagos are volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean on the equator, far from the coas --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / The Galápagos: giant tortoises, sea ig… # The Galápagos: giant tortoises, sea iguanas, Darwin's finches and tame sea lions Lesson 180 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/0/) — The Galápagos are volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean on the equator, far from the coast of South America, and the animals that reached them long ago slowly changed to fit each island. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/1/) — So you find a lizard that swims in the sea and eats seaweed, a cormorant that cannot fly, penguins on the equator and tortoises whose shells are shaped to stretch up for cactus. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/2/) — Because people hardly ever hunted them, the animals are not afraid: a sea lion may nap on a park bench while you walk past, like a neighbour's cat that does not bother to move. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/3/) — In 1835 Charles Darwin visited on the ship Beagle and noticed that birds and tortoises were a little different on each island, and those clues helped him explain how living things change over many generations. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/4/) — Galápagos giant tortoises are among the largest tortoises and can live over a hundred years; on dry islands their saddle-shaped shells let them stretch up to tall cactus. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/5/) — Lonesome George, the last tortoise of his kind from Pinta Island, died in 2012. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/6/) — The marine iguana is the only lizard that swims and feeds in the sea; it dives for seaweed, sneezes out extra salt, and can shrink its body, even its bones, in hard years. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/7/) — Darwin's finches have beaks shaped for different foods, thick for seeds and thin for insects, and birds with the best beaks for their island's food survived and had more young. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/8/) — Peter and Rosemary Grant watched the finches' beaks change within just a few years after a drought. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/9/) — Male blue-footed boobies show off their blue feet in a dance, and brighter blue feet show a healthy, well-fed bird that females prefer. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/10/) — The flightless cormorant is the only cormorant that cannot fly; with no land predators and food in the sea, its wings shrank over many generations. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/12/) — Galápagos sea lions, which have four flippers, nap on benches and boats because the animals were never hunted much, and visitors must stay two metres away. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/13/) — Darwin visited the Galápagos on the Beagle in 1835, and the differences between islands helped him explain evolution in his book of 1859. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/14/) — Male frigatebirds puff up a big red throat pouch to attract females, and frigatebirds can stay in the air for weeks without landing. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/15/) — Goats brought by people ate the plants tortoises needed; when people removed goats from many islands, plants and tortoises began to come back. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/180-the-galapagos-giant-tortoises-sea-iguanas-darwins-finches-and-tame-sea-lions/16/) — Sally Lightfoot crabs are bright red crabs that leap from rock to rock, eat algae and pick ticks off marine iguanas. - ← previous: [Caves: bat clouds, blind fish, the olm, glowworms and a sealed cave](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/179-caves-bat-clouds-blind-fish-the-olm-glowworms-and-a-sealed-cave/) - next →: [Strange islands: Komodo dragons, the dodo, red crabs, kakapos, giants and dwarfs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/181-strange-islands-komodo-dragons-the-dodo-red-crabs-kakapos-giants-and-dwarfs/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)