![]() ![]() The giant lizards of the Canary Islands don't grow longer than about 80cm long, but they were once much bigger. Nobody is quite sure why the Romans chose Lobos islet, but it was probably because it had lots of seals and seabirds to eat. It appears they travelled to the Canaries to harvest purple dye from Murex shells and used Lobos as a base to collect them. This theory received a recent boost when archaeologists discovered a Roman settlement on Lobos islet just north of Fuerteventura. Although now extinct in the Canary Islands (a few survive in Madeira to the north), Monk seals may well have been the 'dogs' that gave the islands their name. They were known as sea wolves by early sailors. The Canary Islands, and especially Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, once had a big colony of Mediterranean monk seals. ![]() Juba II also said that the islands were uninhabited (although his expedition reported finding huts) but we know that the original Canarians were in the Canaries during Juba's reign. It sounds great except for one thing there is no evidence that the islands were covered in big dogs at this time. He specifically referred to the big dogs on the island of Canaria. Pliny the Elder recorded Juba II's discoveries in his Natural History, written in 77 AD (see below). ![]() The story is that Mauretanian king Juba II, a firm ally of the Romans, sent an expedition to the Canary Islands that found "vast multitudes of dogs of very large size". The most common explanation of the name is that it comes from the Latin name Canariae Insulae, meaning "Islands of the Dogs". ![]()
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