Hawaii Volcanoes National Park - Strange Creatures and Ancient Forests

Strange and Amazing Creatures
Today's regeneration of plants on recent lava flows is just a small reminder of the larger miracle that took place here millions of years ago, when life first took hold on the newly formed islands. Like a handful of precious gems scattered in the sea, the Hawaiian Islands are isolated from the rest of the world -- the nearest continent is 2,400 miles away -- and they are not places easily found by living things. But plants and animals did arrive here, by accident: spores waiting on winds, seeds floating on waves or caught in a bird's foot or feathers, land snails rafting to shore on a log, and animals drifting with the ocean's currents. For any life-form to survive such a journey was, and still is, miraculous. On the average, approximately one new life-form colonized the islands every 25,000 years -- a slow process to be sure, but one that eventually transformed empty volcanic islands into places that brim with greenery and echo with song.

Such an arduous trip was out of the question for many kinds of plants and animals. Only two mammals were successful in reaching the islands without human help: the monk seal and a small bat. The seal arrived by swimming and the bat by flying what must have been an extraordinary distance, with few, if any, rest stops. No reptiles, amphibians, or freshwater fish were able to make it to the islands by themselves, and only one palm can claim to be a true native. The life-forms that arrived in Hawaii -- most are from places in the South and West Pacific -- diversified dramatically: all of Hawaii's 2,500 different plants are derived from only 275 immigrants. But even more astounding is the fact that 10,000 species of insects and spiders evolved form as few as 150 original ancestors -- and of these almost all are unique to the islands.

Once the plants and animals reached Hawaii, they gradually changed, and sometimes surprisingly so. Since there were no large animals to graze or browse on the vegetation, plants gradually lost most of their natural defense mechanisms: spines, thorns, repellent odors. Some, like the remarkable violets that grow more than eight feet tall, became woody and attained the height of trees. Lobelias, which are cultivated elsewhere as small, colorful, flowering ornamentals, grow an astonishing 40 feet tall here. No one is sure why ordinary plants have turned into giants. Perhaps it is because in this climate they can grow throughout the year; perhaps the densely packed plant life forced them to push skyward to capture the sun.
Found nowhere else on earth, the brilliantly colored Hawaiian honeycreepers developed unusual beaks. That of the akialoa is curved and so long it reminds one of Pinocchio's nose gone wild; the bird, which now lives on the island of Kauai, uses its beak like a fishing hook to find and skewer insects hiding in bark. Tailored for tapping trees like a woodpecker's, the akiapolaau's lower bill, used for scraping bark, is straight; its curved upper bill spears insects dislodged by the lower one. Other honey creepers have stout, parrotlike, seed-cracking beaks, and still other bills are shaped to match curving, tubular lobelia flowers, making accessible the nectar hidden deep inside. Two other nectar-eating honeycreepers, the iiwi and the apapane (each with a curved bill), dart from tree to tree in the ohia lehua forests. Both birds are small, plump, and bright scarlet marked with black, looking much like the ohia's sweet, round, red blossoms.

More bizarre are the changes that occurred among the insects. Crickets, beetles, and even moths became flightless; one type of caterpillar developed the ability to catch flies. Plant hoppers that took up residence in caves -- they feed on roots dangling into the hollow chambers -- lost the ability to see.

Ancient Forests
The ohia lehua, which varies in form from straggly desert shrubs to handsome 100-foot rain forest giants, is definitely the most common and conspicuous tree on the Big Island. The branches of this gray-barked tree are usually gnarled and covered with small leaves that are sometimes red when young and dark gray-green when they mature. But its glory is the clusters of brilliant red pompons that decorate its branches, their deliciously fragrant nectar attracting many native birds.

In the wetter areas near Kilauea, a garden of tropical ferns, mosses, and flowers flourishes beneath the ohia's spreading branches, forming an almost impassable thicket. Wherever the uluhe, or false staghorn fern, sends its creeping stems -- even meandering up the trees themselves -- gigantic fronds 10 to 15 feet long crochet the trees together into a sturdy green lace. Adding to the chaos are such smaller ferns as the amaumau, whose fanlike fronds, like the leaves of the ohia, gradually turn from red to green. Halemaumau, the fire pit atop Kilauea, takes its name from the amaumau, which supplied the Hawaiians with a reddish dye.

Above the ohia forests, where the climate is cooler, the majestic, moss-covered koa reigns, its yellow flowers like many small sunbursts brightening the day. These are handsome trees, with thick trunks, light-colored bark, and sickle-shaped foliate -- not true leaves but flattened leafstalks -- and they are giants, towering up to 100 feet high. The straight-growing koa furnished the best wood for surfboards, paddles, and house beams; canoes, all-important to Hawaiians, were often carved from just a single log.

The oldest ohia and koa trees stand guard in the kipuka, isolated oases of plants that are surrounded by hardened lava flows, some of which support younger trees and other plants. In the kipuka, one can luxuriate in the very forests that clothed these islands long before human colonists arrived. Kipuka Puaulu, or Bird Park -- a kipuka much treasured on the island -- shelters such rarities as the mamaki tree, whose inner bark was used to make clothing, and the papala, which burns with such a profusion of sparks that early Hawaiians used its branches for fireworks. Amid the ferns and vines of the understory, red berries on the ohelo bushes glisten like rubies. The shrub was considered sacred to Pele, and Hawaiians always delicated the first fruit of the season to the goddess by tossing a handful of ohelo berries into the crater.