As pioneers,
they took everything they would need to start their lives afresh
Livestock,plants for cultivation,even the coconut
But they would also have taken a long list of stowaways,
like the mourning gecko
This lizard was just one castaway
which no longer had to rely on its stamina and luck to reach new lands
It could now hitch a free ride
In a series of epic voyages,
the descendants of the Lapita,
the people we now call the Polynesians,
succeeded in colonising the far corners of the South Pacific -
from Hawaii to New Zealand,——
even to Easter Island,nearly 7,000 miles east of New Guinea
In doing so, animal castaways now reached new islands at a rate never seen before,
changing the nature of the South Pacific forever