Coat of arms of the Canary Islands Coat of arms of the Canary Islands The coat of arms of the Canary Islands is the central device of the flag of the Canary Islands. It reads "Oceano". The designs were made official by the Statute of Autonomy of the Canarian Autonomous Community (Organic Law 10/82) on 10 August 1982. The coat of arms displays on top the Spanish royal crown. The seven gray islands represent the Canary Islands of volcanic origin in the Atlantic Ocean. The supporters are dogs from which the islands may derive their name, possibly from the Latin term "Insula Canaria", meaning Island of the
Canary Islands giant prehistoric tortoises, "Geochelone burchardi" and "Geochelone vulcanica". The islands may have been visited by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Carthaginians. King Juba II, Caesar Augustus's Numidian protégé, is credited with discovering the islands for the Western world. According to Pliny the Elder, Juba found the islands uninhabited, but found "a small temple of stone" and "some traces of buildings". Juba dispatched a naval contingent to re-open the dye production facility at Mogador in what is now western Morocco in the early first century AD. That same naval force was subsequently sent on an exploration of the Canary Islands,