Season 2 Episode 3 - Court of Neptune

In this episode Sarah, Josh and James discuss the opening chapters of Voyage of the Beagle where Darwin recounts the initial months of his voyage that includes an aborted stop at the Canary Islands, a visit to Cape Verde and then his first overland trip in Brazil. James discussed how Darwin spent as much time off the Beagle traveling overland than he did sailing in the Beagle.

By Jules de Caudin - Relation complète du naufrage de la frégate La Méduse faisant partie de l'expédition du Sénégal en 1816, by A. Correard, H. Savigny, D'Anglas de Praviel and Paul C.L. Alexandre Rand des Adrets (dit Sander Rang). Reprint 1968 by Jean de Bonnot éditeur., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19330900

James talked about the work of the scholar John van Wyhe who scoured through Darwin and Fitzroy’s diaries and journals to reconstruct the day-to-day itinerary for the HMS Beagle during the 5 year voyage and lists location, latitude/longitude coordinates and where Darwin was located – either on ship or on land. When you break down of the 1,740 day voyage you realize Darwin made great efforts to spend time away from the ship. From Darwin’s perspective he almost equally split his time between being at sea, at anchor or traveling on land. Based on the itinerary of the Beagle Darwin spent 580 days at Sea, 566 days at anchor and 594 days away from the Beagle on overland excursions. 

Interesting, even when anchored or exploring on land, Darwin would return to sleep on the Beagle which he found to be very comforting.  Darwin spent 1,144 nights on the beagle (65.8% of the trip) whereas he spent 596 nights off ship which is only 34.2% of the trip. Over half (55%) of that time was spent in South America alone. 

James discussed how Darwin's diary and notebooks in the first 2 months of the journey included interesting details that were absent in the Voyage. In particular, Josh talked about the ritualized hazing that sailors would inflict on the new crew members when they crossed the equator, a ritual called the line-crossing ceremony.

Josh referenced this nice article from the Atlas Obscura website that discusses the odd ritual of hazing as one crosses an imaginary line on the earth's surface. Sarah also talked about the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn and how the wind patterns associated with those imaginary lines on the earth drove trans-Atlantic slave trade and the conquest of the New World.

We focused on the first overland trip that Darwin took when he landed in Brazil. This was the first of many trips that Darwin took while Captain Fitzroy fastidiously checked his charts and maps by reiterately sailing up and down the coast of South America.

http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Voyage_of_the_Beagle.jpg

As Darwin traveled overland he mentioed many interesting animals and plants he encountered in the jungles of Brazil. One group of animals Darwin became enamored with was planaria (Plathyhelminthes). Interesting, even to this day new species of flatworms are being discovered in Brazil.

James pointed out that this group of animals also exhibit great species diversity in the marine habitat where they show a beautiful diversity in colors. Here are just few examples of the amazing color diversity of marine flatworms one can find with a simple google image search.

Sarah became obsessed, like Darwin, with bioluminescence. Sarah discussed the amazing evolution of bioluminescence and how it has evolved independently across a number of disparate phyla and kingdoms. Darwin was particularly enamored by a large click beetle that incorporates bioluminescence in mating display. One of our students took a wonderful picture of the same beetle during our Tropical Ecology class to Belize.

photo by Kali Mattingly

The opening and closing theme to Discovering Darwin is "May" by Jared C. Balogh. 
Interlude music http://freemusicarchive.org/music/DubRaJah/Reprise/7_Chitwan