The Desventuradas Islands ( es, Islas Desventuradas, , "Unfortunate Islands" or ''Islas de los Desventurados'', "Islands of the Unfortunate Ones") is a group of four small oceanic islands located off the coast of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

, northwest of

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

. They are considered part of

Insular Chile Insular Chile, also called ''Las islas Esporádicas'', or "the Sporadic Islands", is a scattered group of oceanic islands of volcanic origin located in the South Pacific, at some distance from mainland Chile, and which are under the sovereig ...

. Due to their isolation and difficulty of access there are no civilian settlements on these islands, but a detachment of the

Chilean Navy The Chilean Navy ( es, Armada de Chile) is the naval warfare service branch of the Chilean Armed Forces. It is under the Ministry of National Defense. Its headquarters are at Edificio Armada de Chile, Valparaiso. History Origins and the War ...

is stationed on Isla San Félix, which also hosts the Isla San Felix Airport.

History

Prehistory

No signs of prehistoric human activity by

Polynesians Polynesians form an ethnolinguistic group of closely related people who are native to Polynesia (islands in the Polynesian Triangle), an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Sou ...

Indigenous peoples of the Americas The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...

have ever been found on the islands, or on the neighboring

Juan Fernández Islands The Juan Fernández Islands ( es, Archipiélago Juan Fernández) are a sparsely inhabited series of islands in the South Pacific Ocean reliant on tourism and fishing. Situated off the coast of Chile, they are composed of three main volcanic ...

. Michael Levinson's 1973 book ''The Settlement of Polynesia'' states, "the Juan Fernández Islands and San Felix and San Ambrosio were apparently unoccupied in

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

times and were not discovered by the Spanish until between 1563 and 1574. There is no evidence available to suggest that they were visited for fishing or other reasons by Amerindians before this."

Discovery

The islands were possibly discovered by

Ferdinand Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the Eas ...

as early as 1521. The first confirmed sighting was by Juan Fernández on 6 November 1574 while voyaging from

Callao Callao () is a Peruvian seaside city and region on the Pacific Ocean in the Lima metropolitan area. Callao is Peru's chief seaport and home to its main airport, Jorge Chávez International Airport. Callao municipality consists of the whole Cal ...

Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...

Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1532–1592) was a Spanish explorer, author, historian, mathematician, and astronomer. His birthplace is not certain and may have been Pontevedra, in Galicia, where his paternal family originated, or Alcalá de Henare ...

wrote in 1579 that "they are now called after St. Felix and St. Ambor (i.e. Felix and Nabor)". However, the name of the

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

Ambor (Nabor) became confused with that of the more famous bishop

Saint Ambrose Ambrose of Milan ( la, Aurelius Ambrosius; ), venerated as Saint Ambrose, ; lmo, Sant Ambroeus . was a theologian and statesman who served as Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. He expressed himself prominently as a public figure, fiercely promot ...

(San Ambrosio). It is, probably, one of these islands that Captain John Davis struck one night in 1686. He was able to continue his voyage but erroneously reported the position of the incident. San Felix played a part in the

Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial ...

. In May 1982, the Chilean government allowed an RAF Nimrod R1 to fly signals reconnaissance sorties from the island, gathering information on Argentine Air Force movements.

Ecology

Vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic charac ...

of the larger islands is a miniature mosaic of

matorral 300px, Springtime in Chilean matorral a few kilometers north of Santiago along the Pan-American Highway Matorral is a Spanish language, Spanish word, along with ''tomillares'', for shrubland, thicket or bushes. It is used in naming and describin ...

, barren rock, various sizes of trees, and shrubs mixed with ferns and perennial herbs. '' Thamnoseris lacerata'' is an endemic shrub species. The large islands, San Félix and San Ambrosio, are home to a critical WWF recognized temperate forest biome. The marine fauna shares close affinities with the south Pacific and the central Pacific, more so than with the nearing

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

. This is partly due to the

Humboldt Current The Humboldt Current, also called the Peru Current, is a cold, low-salinity ocean current that flows north along the western coast of South America.Montecino, Vivian, and Carina B. Lange. "The Humboldt Current System: Ecosystem components and pro ...

, which helps create a powerful biogeographic barrier between these islands and South America. There are no permanent sources of fresh water on any of the islands. Vertebrates inhabiting both of the largest islands are limited to birds. Ten

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

marine bird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same envi ...

s and one land bird species, some of them endangered, make their nests on or visit the islands. The island group has been recognised as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Inte ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

because it is a breeding site for large numbers of Masatierra petrels.

List of islands and location

The Desventuradas Islands, from east to west:

References

External links

GoogleMaps picture of San Felix island

World island information @ WorldIslandInfo.com

South America Island High Points above 1000 meters

Archipiélago de Las Desventuradas
(Spanish) *

United States Hydrographic Office The United States Hydrographic Office prepared and published maps, charts, and nautical books required in navigation. The office was established by an act of 21 June 1866 as part of the Bureau of Navigation, Department of the Navy. It was trans ...

South America Pilot
(1916) {{authority control Archipelagoes of Chile Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean Islands of Valparaíso Region Uninhabited islands of Chile Ecoregions of Chile Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests Chilean Matorral Neotropical ecoregions Important Bird Areas of Chile Important Bird Areas of Oceania Seabird colonies Temperate South America