Galapagos Giant Tortoise. This is at the Charles Darwin Research Station in Puerto Ayora. In fact the Galapagos Islands got their name from the tortoise. When the Spanish arrived here, they found so many giant tortoises with saddle shaped shells that they called the islands "Galapagos," Spanish for saddle. Then, there were an estimated 250,000 tortoises; today approximately 15,000 remain.