Clarion Island

Clarion ( Spanish Isla Clarion, formerly Isla Santa Rosa ) is an island in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is, as the second largest and westernmost of belonging to Mexico Revillagigedo Islands, lying 314 km from Socorro Island, the largest of this island group is removed. Politically, the island is a part of the Mexican state of Colima, whose coast it is about 1000 km away.

The island is 8.5 km long, 3.7 km wide and has an area of 19.7 km ². The highest elevation on the island is 335 meters of Monte Gallegos. Except for a small naval station with nine -man crew, the island is uninhabited. Like all Revillagigedo Islands is also Clarion volcanic origin.

History

About the Clarion's discovery, there are different information: you may already have been discovered in late 1542 by the Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, or 1615 by the Dutch seafarer Joris van Spilbergen, or 1779 by José Camacho, which they christened Santa Rosa. Another early contact dated August 21, 1721, when the English Kaperkapitän George Shelvocke - Coming from California - the island wiedersichtete. The island name dates back to the American brig Clarion ( Captain Henry Gyzelaar ), which was located in 1820 on a trading voyage in the Pacific.

Flora and Fauna

Clarion is part of the created on June 4, 1994 Biosphere Reserve of the Biosphere " Archipelago de Revillagigedo ." On the island of 20 endemic plant species, an endemic species of bird, the Clarion Wren ( Troglodytes tanneri ) and three endemic subspecies occur: The Revillagigedo burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia rostrata ), the Clarion - Raven (Corvus corax clarionensis ) and the Clarion - Mourning Dove ( Zenaida macroura clarionensis ).