The Revillagigedo Islands (, ) or Revillagigedo Archipelago are a group of four volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean, known for their unique ecosystem. They lie approximately from Socorro Island south and southwest of Cabo San Lucas, the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, and west of Manzanillo. Historically linked to the Mexican state of Colima, to which they were granted in 1861 to establish a penal colony, the islands are under Mexican federal property and jurisdiction.
In July 2016, the Revillagigedo Archipelago was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in November 2017 they were declared to be a marine reserve and a national park of Mexico. Some of the volcanoes are active, with the last eruption of Volcán Bárcena in 1953, and Socorro in 1993. Travelling to the islands from their nearest land point takes approximately 26 to 30 hours, as they are typically reached by sea; a small military airstrip exists on Socorro.
Geography
The total area is 157.81 km2 (60.93 mi2), spread over an east-to-west extent of about 420 km (261 mi). A naval station in the south of Socorro Island has a population of 45 (staff). On Clarión is a small naval garrison with nine men. The islands are otherwise uninhabited. The islands are named after Don Juan Vicente de Güemes, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo, the 53rd viceroy of New Spain.
Island (alternate name) Length bywidth (km) Area (km2) Highest peak (m)Inner islands (UTC-7, Mountain Time Zone)San Benedicto 4.315 by 2.490 5.94 Bárcena (310)Socorro (San Tomás) 16.813 by 15.629 132.06 Mount (Cerro) Evermann (1130)Roca Partida 0.246 by 0.073 0.014 (34)Outer island (UTC-8, Pacific Time Zone)Clarión (Santa Rosa) 8.544 by 3.686 19.80 Monte Gallegos (335)Revillagigedo Islands 420 by 115 157.81 Mount (Cerro) Evermann (1130) The three eastern islands are called the inner islands. They fall in the time zone UTC-7 (Mountain Time), while the major part of Colima is UTC-6 (Central Time Zone). Clarión is comparatively far to the west, by more than 200 km (100 miles) in comparison with the inner islands, and in UTC-8 (Pacific Time Zone). The Revillagigedo Islands are one of three Mexican island groups in the Pacific Ocean that are not on the continental shelf; the others are Guadalupe Island and Rocas Alijos.
History
Sixteenth to nineteenth century
No evidence of human habitation on any of the islands exists before their discovery by Spanish explorers. Hernando de Grijalva and his crew discovered an uninhabited island on 19 December 1533, and named it Santo Tomás (Socorro Island) and on 28 December they discovered Isla de los Inocentes (San Benedicto) which owed its name to having been found on the day of the Holy Innocents.American Geographical Society of New York (1967), Special publication, issue 38, p. 370, American Geographical Society, ISSN 0065-843X
In November 1542, Ruy López de Villalobos, while exploring new routes across the Pacific, rediscovered Inocentes and Santo Tomás and charted the latter as Anublada ("Cloudy"). Villalobos was the first to report sighting of Roca Partida Island giving it its present-day name. In 1608, Martín Yánez de Armida, in charge of another expedition, visited Anublada and changed its name to Socorro. In 1779 José Camacho was the first to report sighting of the island remaining, that he charted as Santa Rosa ("Saint Rose"). Santa Rosa was later renamed Clarion after the vessel commanded by Henry Gyzelaar at that time.
The Revillagigedo Islands have been visited by a number of other explorers: Domingo del Castillo (1541), Miguel Pinto (1772), Alexander von Humboldt (1811), Benjamin Morrell (1825), Sir Edward Belcher (1839) who made the first botanical collections and Reeve, who witnessed the eruption of Mount Evermann in 1848.Geological Survey (U.S.) U.S. Geological Survey professional paper, issue 492–493, p. 281, ISSN 1044-9620 On 25 July 1861, President Benito Juárez signed a decree awarding territorial control over the four islands to the state of Colima. His plan was to build an offshore penitentiary on Isla Socorro; although this never happened, the decree whereby they were attached to Colima has never been repealed. In 1865, the island was explored by ornithologist Andrew Jackson Grayson, who discovered the Socorro dove, Socorro mockingbird and the Socorro elf owl which were later given scientific names in his honor.
Twentieth century
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Dr. Barton Warren Evermann, director of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California, promoted the scientific exploration of the islands. The most comprehensive biological collections were obtained at this time. The volcano on Isla Socorro was renamed in his honor. In 1957 the Mexican Navy established a naval base on Socorro and has had a permanent presence on the island since then. A tiny outpost also exists on Clarión, as noted above. On 21 March 1972, became the first Governor of Colima to visit his state's island territories. A plaque was unveiled to mark the event and cement Colima's claim.
The seas surrounding the larger islands are popular with scuba divers; a variety of marine life such as cetaceans, sharks and manta rays can be observed. Visitors usually stay aboard expedition vessels during their visit to the islands, which is desirable from an ecological standpoint to prevent introduction of further invasive species. The islands are considered dangerous to visit for purposes beyond diving since it is difficult to make a landing; some have nearly lost their lives attempting to do so on Clarion for example.
They are occasionally visited by amateur radio operators, who usually use the ITU prefix XF4. Because of their distance from the mainland, for award credit they are considered to be an "entity" separate from Mexico. Expeditions from organizations engaged in biological conservation of the islands visit the islands for fieldwork on a regular basis. No tourism facilities exist; the islands have no reliable sources of fresh water of their own.
Twenty-first century On 24 November 2017, President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto created North America's largest marine protected area around the Revillagigedo Islands. This protected area covers around the islands, and bans fishing, mining, and tourism development in the protected area and on the islands.
Ecology The Revillagigedo Islands are home to many endemic plant and animal species, and are sometimes called Mexico's "little Hawaii". They are recognized as a distinct terrestrial ecoregion, part of the Neotropical realm. Socorro is the most diverse in flora, fauna, and topography. The Mexican Government established the islands as a Biosphere Reserve on June 4, 1994. Oceanographic Magazine stated in 2020 that, "Its remoteness, protection and peculiar oceanography makes it one of the most biodiverse and exciting marine destinations on earth."
The islands are mostly covered with tropical dry forest, with several distinct plant communities that vary with elevation, soils, and exposure. Hopbush (Dodonaea viscosa) and Guettarda insularis are common dry forest species. Green buttonwood mangrove (Conocarpus erectus) and the shrub Hibiscus tiliaceus pernambucensis grow along the seacoast.Schipper, Jan. Islas Revillagigedo Dry Forests. One Earth. Retrieved 23 June 2024.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 14 of the islands' 16 generally accepted resident taxa of landbirds are endemic, and include the Clarión wren (Troglodytes tanneri), Socorro wren (Troglodytes sissonii), Socorro mockingbird (Mimus graysoni), Socorro dove (Zenaida graysoni), and Socorro parakeet (Arahuga brevipes). Clarión is home to endemic subspecies of burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia rostrata), mourning dove (Zenaida macroura clarionensis), and common raven (Corvus corax clarionensis).Ross M. Wanless, Alfonso Aguirre-muñoz, Andrea Angel, Jeff K. Jacobsen, Bradford S. Keitt, and John McCann "Birds of Clarion Island, Revillagigedo Archipelago, Mexico," The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 121(4), 745-751, (1 December 2009). https://doi.org/10.1676/08-140.1A A variety of yellow-crowned night heron, Nyctanassa violacea bancrofti (gravirostris), is endemic to Socorro.Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (bancrofti). Avibase. Retrieved 24 June 2024. Townsend's shearwater (Puffinus auricularis) is a seabird that breeds only around Cerro Evermann on Socorro. It formerly bred on Clarión and San Benedicto, but has not bred on Clarión since 1988 nor on San Benedicto since 1952.BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Puffinus auricularis. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
The islands' four native terrestrial vertebrates are all endemic, and include a whip snake (Masticophis anthonyi), a night snake (Hypsiglena unaocularis) and two iguanids (Urosaurus auriculatus and U. clarionensis). Numerous seabird taxa breed no further north(east)wards than San Benedicto; storm-petrels are notably absent as breeders though they breed in the region and visit the islands to forage. Albatrosses are also not normally found here. Among landbirds, the absence of the house finch, widespread on northeastern Pacific offshore islands, is the most conspicuous one.
Apart from the native birds, migrant shorebirds and others are often found on the islands. Bahia Azufre (Sulfur Bay) on Clarión seems to be a favorite stopover location, as it is one of the few longer stretches of beach in the islands; mostly, the shoreline is steep cliffs. The archipelago is also a part of wintering grounds for humpback whales in the North Pacific.Urban J., Jaramillo A.L., Aguayo A., Baker S.C., 2000, Migratory destinations of humpback whales wintering in the Mexican Pacific, Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 2(2), pp.101–110, Retrieved on January 29, 2017
Socorro has numerous endemic plant taxa, whereas Clarión has only a few. The San Benedicto ecosystem was nearly wiped out in the devastating eruption of Bárcena volcano on August 1, 1952. The ecosystem there has since recovered, but the event is known to have caused the extinction of the San Benedicto rock wren. Most if not all native plants found on San Benedicto today are shared with Clarión, but not with the closer Socorro to the south, due to the prevailing winds and ocean currents. The native flora of Clarión is about equally shared with both other large islands.
As opposed to the interchange between the islands, the animals and plants that colonized them initially are apparently all from mainland populations generally to the northeastward of the Revillagigedos. Plants are most often derived from Baja California founder populations, whereas the endemic nonavian reptiles seem to be rather derived directly from mainland populations of the Sonora-Sinaloa area. The ancestors of the islands' terrestrial birds probably came from the general area of southern North and northern Central America. As illustrated by the fact that no endemic landbird taxon occurs on more than one island and the cases of the Socorro and Clarión wrens as well as the Socorro dove and Clarión mourning dove, each bird population seems to have arisen independently. The archipelago has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International for its breeding seabirds and endemic landbirds.