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Darwin's Arch, a famous natural rock formation off the Galápagos Islands, has collapsed into the sea.
The stunning formation, named after the eminent biologist Charles Darwin, sat inside a Unesco World Heritage site, home to one of the world's most spectacular diving sites.
"Today, May 17, 2021, the collapse of the Darwin Arch, the attractive natural bridge located less than a kilometer from the main island Darwin, the northernmost island of the Galápagos archipelago, was reported," the Ecuadorian Ministry of Environment said in a statement posted to Facebook on Monday.
The collapse is believed to be a consequence of "natural erosion," according to the ministry.
The rock bridge, made of natural stone, is thought to have at one point been connected to the small, uninhabited Darwin Island which sits nearby.
Scores of tourists flock to the area to observe the array of unique flora and fauna in the Galápagos Islands archipelago.
Darwin Island in particular is considered to boast some of the best diving in the world, with whale sharks, hammerhead sharks, green turtles, manta rays and dolphins all calling the marine wonderland home.
The Galápagos Islands area (nicknamed the "enchanted isles") is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, famous for its unusually high levels of biodiversity—and for inspiring Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection in the 19th century. The archipelago is made up of 234 islands, inlets and rocks and sits in the Pacific Ocean, roughly 1,000 kilometers (about 600 miles) from the Ecuador coast.
The archipelago is also home to the world's largest tortoises, also known as giant tortoises.
The endemic species was famously studied by Charles Darwin.
In nearby Puerto Rico, a 5.8-magnitude earthquake in 2020 caused the collapse of the Playa Ventana Rock Formation, another unique natural rock arch and popular tourist attraction.
According to local media reports, the tremors caused parts of the rocks to break off and as a result "The Window Beach" disappeared in January of 2020.
The Playa Ventana is located in the Boca neighborhood of Guayanilla, between Cerro Toro and Punta Ventana. It was known as "Window Beach" because in the middle of the rock formation, raised above the shoreline, a hole allowed people to look out to the sea.
