Canary Islands The connection to dogs is retained in their depiction on the islands' coat-of-arms. It is considered that the aborigines of Gran Canaria called themselves "Canarios". It is possible that after being conquered, this name was used in plural in Spanish, i.e., as to refer to all of the islands as the Canarii-as. What is certain is that the name of the islands does not derive from the canary bird; rather, the birds are named after the islands. Tenerife is the largest and most populous island of the archipelago. Gran Canaria, with 865,070 inhabitants, is both the Canary Islands' second most
Marine life of the Canary Islands the most commonly seen invertebrate in Canary Island waters, the lime urchin is, ecologically, a very not important herbivore. Populations of these creatures have increased rapidly within recent years, primarily due to overfishing of their natural predators, such as starfish, triggerfish and Triton's trumpet. In areas with many of these creatures, the seabed can become completely stripped of algae. As a response to this "ecological emergency", widespread culling of sea urchins has been advocated in some areas. Marine mammals of the Canary Islands include varieties of cetaceans, such as rorquals (not much known about their distributions in northeastern Atlantic), sperm