Pancreatic islets Pancreatic islets The pancreatic islets or islets of Langerhans are the regions of the pancreas that contain its endocrine (hormone-producing) cells, discovered in 1869 by German pathological anatomist Paul Langerhans. The pancreatic islets constitute 1 to 2% of the pancreas volume and receive 10–15% of its blood flow. The pancreatic islets are arranged in density routes throughout the human pancreas, and are important in the metabolism of glucose. There are about 3 million islets distributed in the form of "density routes" throughout the pancreas of a healthy adult human, each of which measures an average of about 0.1 mm (109
Beatrice Islets remove South African boxthorn, an introduced species considered to an infestation risk, which occurred either during the 1960s or the 1970s and which resulted in the islets becoming ‘susceptible to erosion, and tides and rough weather’ thereby reducing the ‘once stable vegetated islets to bare, wave-washed sand spits’. Subsequent attempts to stabilise the islets and encourage the deposition of sand were unsuccessful. As of 1987, the islets were reported as existing ‘only as a mudflat/cocklebed which emerges above the sea at low tide.’ The conditions for the creation of The Spit and therefore Beatrice Islets and Busby Islet became possible