漂流者 27

No matter how remote the Hawaiian islands are,or how hostile,

there is one creature that has reached almost all of them

The mourning gecko

It is the ultimate castaway,

the marathon winner on the long journey from New Guinea

Incredibly,

the female mourning gecko has done away with the need for a mate

Instead, she simply produces eggs that need no fertilisation

So one single female washed up on an island could start a whole population

Along with this extraordinary ability

these thick-skinned and salt-resistant geckos

could also survive long sea passages on rafts

and even the force of cyclones

But there is more to the gecko's story than this

Less than 2,000 years ago,

something happened that was to revolutionise the spread of plantsand animals

Taking to their sailing boats once more,

descendants of the Lapita left the central Pacific

and set off again in search of new lands into the great unknown