Genovesa Island

Pacific Ocean, Ecuador

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Genovesa Island, also called Tower Island, forms a distinctive horseshoe shape in the northeastern Galápagos archipelago off Ecuador, created by the collapse of a shield volcano's caldera into Darwin Bay, surrounded by steep cliffs up to 64 meters high.

Uninhabited and spanning 14 square kilometers, it features a central saltwater crater lake called Lake Arcturus with sediments less than 6,000 years old and young lava flows on its flanks, though no historical eruptions are recorded.

Known as the "Bird Island," it hosts massive colonies of red-footed boobies, Nazca boobies, great frigatebirds, swallow-tailed gulls, and storm petrels, plus the archipelago's smallest marine iguanas, with prime visitor sites at Darwin Bay for snorkeling and Prince Philip's Steps trail through seabird nesting areas amid palo santo forests.