ANIMAL ISLANDS

Hop aboard as Daisy Dobrijevic sets sail to discover the world's most unusual beasts.

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Islands are some of the most interesting places on Earth. Cut off by vast oceans, towering cliffs or coral reefs, they are nature's laboratories. Imagine being separated from the rest of the world for millions of years! This gives evolution the chance to try a series of isolation experiments. Over time, animals' bodies change shape and their behaviours shift to suit where they live. In the end, a unique set of animals (and plants) evolve – that often exist nowhere else in the world. Scientists call this endemism (when a species is found in just one place on Earth). Think of Madagascar with its lemurs and fossas, or Australia with its kangaroos and duck-billed platypuses.

This one-of-a-kind status makes island animals vulnerable to change. Imagine playing a video game where you were stuck repeating the same level over and over again. Soon, you'd learn every shortcut, every hiding place and every trick. Eventually, you'd become a master – smarter and better than anyone else – at that one level. If you were dropped into a different level with unfamiliar rules, you'd be lost. Animals that survive in a single place on Earth face similar problems. They become so well adapted that if other animals arrive, or the place changes quickly, they struggle to adapt.

Evolution runs riot

One of the best places to see this in action is in the Galápagos Islands. Nestled in the Pacific Ocean, more than 600 miles west off Ecuador, these volcanic islands are best known for inspiring Charles Darwin's ideas about evolution. The land animals here evolved with no natural predators and so are unusually calm around humans (this is a trait often seen in island environments).