CHARGE!

Galápagos sea lions are usually solitary hunters, but recently they have been seen hunting as a tight-knit team with deadly precision

- TUI DE ROY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tui De Roy is a photographer, conservationist, writer and has lived in the Galápagos since she was young. See more of her work at tuideroy.com and read her paper in Ecology & Evolution at onlinelibrary.wiley.com.

IT STARTED ONE afternoon as I sat on the edge of a deserted Galápagos cliff, gazing over the sea. Absorbed in a quiet reverie, I had no inkling that I was about to witness a spectacle so incredible that it would - five years and 2,400 photographs later - lead to my first-ever scientific paper, despite having no formal academic credentials.

Ever since Charles Darwin's famed visit almost two centuries ago in 1835, the Galápagos Islands have been renowned for their remarkable array of unique flora and fauna - none more so than their extraordinary reptiles. Iconic giant tortoises and marine iguanas have long stolen the attention of the world, with some very special birds following close behind, such as Darwin's finches, Galápagos penguins and flightless cormorants.

MAMMALS, ON THE OTHER hand, are lacking, represented by just a handful of rodents and bats, and two pinnipeds of the Otariid family, known as the eared seals or more commonly as sea lions and fur seals. These agile, fast-swimming social creatures propel themselves with their front flippers, unlike true seals, which use slower, rear flipper propulsion.

The Galápagos archipelago lies slap bang on the equator, 930km off the west coast of Ecuador. Nowhere else in the world have these high-energy marine mammals conquered a tropical habitat, usually preferring the higher latitudes, where marine productivity tends to be much higher. In this regard, the Galápagos Islands buck the trend.

Cooperation vs competition