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