News of the serious oil spill off the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean sent shockwaves through the environmental and scientific communities alike. The Islands harbour a unique collection of species that help explain how evolution works and how remarkable creatures can come to exist.
Even now workers are attempting to contain the diesel and heavy oil released from the stricken Jessica which ran a ground just over a week ago. Birds and animals are being moved away from at-risk coasts or to other islands in the archipelago.
These spills create familiar and disturbing images of sick and dying birds coated in oil, poisoned fish and terrified sea animals. The thing however that makes Galapagos and this oil spill special is that many of the species found there exist nowhere else on Earth. Damage to any of the fragile ecosystems that support these animals and birds could mean extinction.
About 5,000 species live on the islands and as many as 40 per cent of them are unique to the archipelago. The bluefooted boobie, red Galapagos crab, Galapagos sea lion and Galapagos penguin call the islands home. The islands themselves are named after a creature that has served almost as a trademark, the giant Galapagos tortoise. The remarkable creature is also seriously at risk after the spill which currently covers hundreds of square miles of ocean.
The uniqueness of the island's species is a testimony to the processes that drive evolution, the natural system that creates new creatures by enabling existing ones to change. Evolution itself was established as a theory after its author, Charles Darwin, came to the islands in 1835 as a young man aboard the HMS Beagle.
Darwin spent some time on the islands and developed his ideas on the basis of the animals and birds he saw around him. It is for this reason that the archipelago is "like a natural experimental area", explained Prof Paul Giller of the Department of Zoology and Animal Ecology at University College Cork. "It has been and is still being used as a way to show how nature works," he said.
There are 13 species of finches on the islands but all evolved from a single species, he said. Each demonstrates a unique physiology and behaviour which emerged as the original evolved in the ecological niche. The island's remoteness serves this process. Lying about 1,200 km off the coast of Ecuador, it is far removed from South America which teems with interacting species.
This diversity was not available on the volcanic Galapagos which rose from the sea only four or five million years ago, a blink of the eye in geological terms. The islands likely remained devoid of life for thousands of years before seabirds, seeds drifting across from South America and unintentional migrants blown on storm winds reached the archipelago.
Because the species which washed up there had no near relatives to mate with, the islands represented a genetic cul-de-sac. There was no way to achieve genetic diversity through mating.
Yet diversity still arose, and in fabulous forms. Giantism emerged because there were no mammal predators to destroy tortoise or iguana eggs. Remarkable plants evolved such as the islands' famous cactus trees. Birds took on intriguing habits, such as the woodpecker that uses cactus needles rather than its beak to bore into trees.
The harsh environment worked against permanent human habitation so many of the creatures, such as hammerhead sharks, perceive no threat from people.
Now aspects of what has been described as the "Galapagos wonderland" are under threat from the oil spill. Some oil has reached land but so far the number of birds and other creatures affected by it has remained low.
There are longer-term risks however, as Prof Giller pointed out. The oil "will severely affect the inter-tidal and sub-tidal reaches" along the coasts. These are important feeding grounds for crabs, insects, marine iguanas and birds. The oil could wipe out the food resource and poison the creatures that attempt to feed.
There is also the socio-economic impact for Ecuador, which owns the islands. The archipelago has become a major revenue earner as thousands of scientists and eco-tourists flock there each year.
The international community is responding to Ecuador's calls for assistance, given the world importance of this remote outpost of life on Earth. The question is, will the help come soon enough?