Nature's Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution: Hawaii: A New Eden

Series in which Professor Richard Fortey investigates why islands are natural laboratories of evolution and meets some of the unique and remarkable species that live on them. In the first episode, Fortey is on Hawaii to investigate how life colonises a newly born island. According to some estimates, Hawaii has been successfully colonised by only one new species every 35,000 years due to its remote location - yet the Hawaiian Islands teem with a great diversity of life. In search of the evolutionary secrets of how one species becomes many, Fortey encounters beautiful honeycreeper birds whose evolution rivals that of Darwin's famous finches; carnivorous caterpillars who now can't eat leaves; and giant silversword plants that thrive in parched volcanic soil at 10,000 feet. episode 1