Charles Darwin once find the rarified boo he had been searching for for geezerhood – halfway through chowing it down for Christmas dinner .
When you picture Darwin , you may imagine him in the Galapagos diligently taking notes while observing a finch , maybe point out on flimsy conflict between it and anothervery alike finch . You probably do n’t straightaway imagine him ride around on a giant tortoise or chowing down on endangered species as if they were party bite – but Darwin did both these things , with the latter leading to a particularly distressful incident in which he consumed a vital miss slice of his work .
get in on San Cristóbal Island in the Galapagos on his first trip-up , Darwin regularly – and without paying attention to their suitableness for transport – ride around on tortoise , which he also considered food .
“ I ofttimes got on their backs , and then giving a few rap music on the hinder part of their shells , they would grow up and walk away,“he wrote , " but I notice it very difficult to keep my balance ”
Darwin – a noted penis of the Cambridge University Glutton Club whichmet to feast on"birds and beasts which were before unknown to human roof of the mouth " – of course use up the brute , which he preferred roasted or in the shape of a soup .
" While stay in this upper region we live on solely upon tortoise - meat : the breastplate ridicule ( as the Gauchos do carne con cuero ) , with the flesh on it , is very proficient , " Darwinwrote of the animals . " And the unseasoned tortoise make fantabulous soup ; but otherwise the center to my taste is indifferent . "
As great of a naturalist as he was , Darwin was a hungry human . In December 1833 , while at Port Desire , one of the ship ’s crew take a Pterocnemia pennata to be consume for Christmas dinner party . Darwin had for a long clip been look for for a hoot he holler the " Avestruz petise " , now know as Darwin ’s Rhea . It interest him because of the slight differences between it and another species of nandu which survive to the island ’s due north . For years , the birds had evade him – but they were n’t about to elude his venter .
Darwin believed that he was eating a immature greater Rhea americana that Christmas , but was in fact deplete the elusive petise which would one Clarence Shepard Day Jr. be name after him . Hejumped up during the mealand urgently tried to salve the clay of the hiss , pull off to get a backstage , the header , its legs , and plenty of declamatory feathers .
With his leftovers in tow , he operate off to contemplate the remains ( the biological matter formerly known as " lunch " ) and became convinced that there were two species of rhea in South America , of which he was right .
