Ubiquitous and beautiful!

They're called "Sally Lightfoot crabs". And they are ubiquitous, and I think they are very beautiful in a creepy sort of way. Their colors are just fantastic. And I love the name, since I have a daughter named Sally. Guess what she got as a souviner? You guessed it, "crab" artifacts.
A beauty on the beach!
This one has a prime viewing spot.
Watching them scrabble over the rocks and jump from one rock to another, you can see why they have the name Sally Lightfoot, a famous dancer. They fairly dance from one place to another. Often we saw them crawling across the backs of marine iguanas, the iguanas don't move much, and the crabs are always on the move.

One thing I never resolved in my mind is how something this colorful survives, because its coloration is definitely not a protective element! They just seem to be screaming "eat me!" when the beautiful red crab scrabbles over black rocks. But I guess enough of them survive, even with being a tasty food source. Of course, we never ate them, no fishing on Galapagos for humans!

Most of the animals in Galapagos are totally unfazed by humans being around them. They are completely protected from any harm or intervention. All islands are marked with trails, and you must be accompanied by a trained Galapagos Park Service guide to even set foot on the islands. And the amount of "people traffic" per day on each island is very closely controlled.

We had some excellent guides on our tour, some very highly educated people, who were natives of Galapagos or Guayaquil Ecuador. They certainly knew their facts, and shared them with us as we walked the trails on each island.