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Socotra and become a caveman in the alien environment. It has some of the most unique flora and fauna on the planet, it's one the same level as extremely isolated Pacific islands like the Hawaiian and Galapagos chains. It's one of the most isolated islands formed from a continental land mass. Hawaii and many other Pacific islands were formed by sea floor volcanoes that rose above the ocean surface. Socotra is a chunk of mainland continent that drifted off a couple hundred million years ago and did its own thing. Most island chains overflow with unique
endemic species. Socotra is unique even among isolated island chains. It has been described as "the most alien-looking place on Earth."
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loginBotanical field surveys led by the Centre for Middle Eastern Plants (part of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) indicate that 307 out of the 825 (37%) plant species on Socotra are endemic, i.e., they are found nowhere else on Earth. It is unique, strange, and haunting. Imagine being the first human to set foot here - the landscape looks like something out of a fairy tale.
Here's some other cool shit for you islomaniacs out there.
Dryococelus australis, a stick insect commonly known as the tree lobster, was thought to be extinct since the 1920s. Invasive rats decimated the population. In 2001 a
relict population of the strange creature was found on a tiny spit of land. Read more about its re-discovery
here. These little fuckers were declared extinct for almost 100 years, then some dude found them on the shittiest most inhospitable island you can imagine.
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loginNext time: motherfuckin'
Cambrian era sea creatures. You think there were some fucked up dinosaurs out there? Wait til you see these weird-ass fuckers. Many of them were among the first multi-cellular organisms, and they diverged from our human family tree more than 500 million years ago (before mice, before birds, before reptiles, before amphibians). They have bizarre body plans that resemble no living creature today. Perhaps even more interesting are the descendants of these ancient clades that still exist today. They must be doing
something right, since they have existed for magnitudes longer (550,000,000 vs 50,000) longer than the Homo sapiens lineage.
Y'all know that sharks and crocodiles have lived unchanged since before the dinosaurs. They survived the Cretaceous Extinction Event 65 million years ago, and dominated food chains for millions of years before that. But we can dig deeper. Next time, we will go back to an era before dinosaurs and crocodiles and sharks were a twinkle in their mommy's eye. The further back you go, the more fucked up and alien things become. We goin' full alien next post.
