And few islands are more remote than these. 2,000 miles from the nearest continent, Hawaii is the world's most isolated archipelago. It is so far flung that less than 500 kinds of animal settled here in 30 million years. Remarkably, many of these colonisers were carried to Hawaii on the back of cyclones. For an animal to be sucked up by storm winds, carried across the ocean and dumped here alive was a matter of extraordinary luck. Yet that's what happened to the ancestor of this insect. It's a kind of fruit fly, but no ordinary one. Hawaii's fruit flies are the birds of paradise of the insect world. They attract females with elaborate courtship rituals and have a sophisticated range of territorial behaviour. Male hammerhead flies use their heads as battering rams.


有几个岛甚至比这还遥远。离最近的大陆2000哩远，夏威夷是世界上最隔绝的群岛，它被抛得太远了，不到500种动物定居在这里已3千万年。非同寻常的是许多开拓者都是被接二连三的龙卷风带到夏威夷的。对于一个被暴风吸入的动物来说，携跨过海洋被抛弃在此仍活着够幸运的。这只昆虫的祖先曾发生过什么。它是果蝇的一种，但不是普通的果蝇。夏威夷果蝇是昆虫世界的极乐鸟，它们用复杂的求爱仪式来吸引雌性，有严密的属地范围表现。马累锤头蝇用它们的头部作为战斗工具。