Kingdom of the Canary Islands Palma (in 1492–1493) and Tenerife (in 1494–1496) for the Crown of Castile, thus completing the conquest of the island group. Kingdom of the Canary Islands The Kingdom of the Canary Islands was founded in 1404, although it had always recognized another country as their overlord. Its purpose was probably entirely to conquer the Canaries, and to eventually be fully incorporated into the Crown of Castile when complete. Apart from earlier contact by Romans, one of the first known Europeans to have encountered the Canaries was the Genoan navigator Lancelotto Malocello. He arrived on the island of Lanzarote, (which was probably
Gallotia 2010). Finally, the clade that colonized the younger western islands was likely to have originated from Lanzarote/Fuerteventura. This western island clade diverged into two groups, all of which colonized Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, leading to 1) a medium-bodied (e.g., "G. caesaris" from El Hierro) and 2) a large bodied "giant" species (e.g., "G. simonyi" from El Hierro) on each of these islands (note that "G. intermedia" from Tenerife belongs to the "giant" group, but present-day individuals are not that large). The giant species now exist, at best, in small relict populations, while "G. auritae" may be