Marine iguana

I've got a great deal of time for Charlie Darwin.

- 

He got an awful lot right. But he’d have got it right a whole lot quicker if he'd paid more attention to us when he visited the Galápagos Islands. Instead of writing us off as “disgusting clumsy lizards” he could have looked at us a bit more closely. He'd have had his great idea there and then.

Monday

The story has gone into marine iguana folklore: the day when Charlie was a bit bored and whiled away the afternoon by chucking one of my ancestors into the sea. He did it again and again: every time the poor creature got back to shore, he picked it up again and chucked it back in. Just the sort of behaviour you'd expect from a rich kid on a five-year-long gap-year.

Tuesday