Gaula (Madeira) Gaula (Madeira) Gaula is a Portuguese civil parish, in the municipality of Santa Cruz in the island of Madeira. The population in 2011 was 4,028, in an area of 6.95 km². It is located northeast of the island capital of Funchal. Gaula's history is tied to universe of local history, popular culture, literature, traditions and customs; it was originally referred to as the "terra do amadis de Gaula" ("Land of Amadis de Gaula"), "terra de adelos” ("Land of the wandering salesmen"), "terras de doutores" ("Lands of the Doctors"), "terra de padres" ("Land of Priests"), "terra das amoras" ("Land of the
Madeira firecrest of the Canaries, Azores, and Madeira have a volcanic origin and they have never been part of a continent. The formation of Madeira started in the Miocene and the island was substantially complete 700,000 years ago. In the distant past the major islands of these archipelagos were all colonised by "Regulus" species, which evolved on their respective islands isolated from mainland populations. The firecrest descendant evolved in Madeira and goldcrest subspecies evolved on the other islands. Cytochrome "b" gene divergence between common firecrests from Europe and Madeira firecrests suggests an evolutionary separation roughly 4 million years ago, considerably earlier than