The world has approximately 900,000 official islands, both continental and oceanic. Some countries have only a few, while others consist of numerous countries. The Philippines has the most, with more than 7,000 islands and islets. While most are normal, there are islands where things are not quite normal. From a rock that scares scientists to a broken species that rebuilds itself, here are 10 islands with unique claims to fame.

Related: 10 rare finds from the Cretaceous period

10 Largest number of unique mammals

Those who know a thing or two about animals might think that Australia or Madagascar is home to the largest concentration of unique mammal species. Not so. In 2016, a fifteen-year investigation into this matter was completed and the true location of this extraordinary menagerie was revealed. It was the island of Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines.

Excluding flying mammals such as bats, the study found that Luzon had 56 species of mammals, and a notable number of them, 52, were endemic to the island. Furthermore, 93% of these species do not exist anywhere else, making the island a biological gem.

But how did the island manage to beat all other places and develop so many unique mammals? Luzon is spacious, about the size of Iceland or Cuba. Besides providing ample space, it also consists of different types of habitats, reducing competition between evolving species.^[1]

9 The first Laguna Moai

The Moai of Easter Island need no introduction. These enormous human figures are among the most recognizable statues in the world. In 2023, the small island gave up another hidden Moai, but this one was different.

Certainly, it was an ordinary Moai statue with the characteristic elongated facial features and without legs. But what made this man special was the location where he was found. Standing 1.6 meters tall, it was discovered lying on its side in a dry lagoon bed in a Rano Raraku crater. No other Moai had ever appeared in a lagoon in this region.

The new image also brings with it a mystery. Experts estimate that the statue was underwater for 200 to 300 years before the lagoon began to dry up in 2018. During that time, the water was almost 10 feet deep, meaning no one could have placed the statue there purposefully. . It remains unclear how the Maoi ended up at the bottom of the lagoon.^[2]

3 A hospital superbug

In 2009, a fungus called Candida auris mysteriously appeared in various hospitals around the world. It was fatal for patients, multi-drug resistant and extremely difficult to expel from a hospital. In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) called the fungus an “urgent threat” to the public.

C. Auris had never been found in nature, but scientists suspected that the superbug came from the ‘wild’ and that it was once harmless. Most fungi cannot harm humans because our body temperature is too high. But what if climate change causes this? C. Auris to evolve into an organism that can thrive in heat – what about humans?

Researchers from Delhi University eventually found out C. Auris in a swamp and on a beach in the Andaman Islands, a remote archipelago near India. The beach bug was multi-resistant and grew faster at high temperatures than those from the swamp, indicating that it was a newer “version” that had adapted to the heat. This supported the terrifying theory that global warming can turn harmless organisms into deadly human pathogens.^[3]

7 ‘Dead’ ant colonies

When devastating bushfires swept through Australia in 2020, Kangaroo Island was not left unscathed. Two people were killed and more than 40% of the land was burned.

To help animal populations recover from the fire, wildlife experts have installed 901 breeding boxes in 13 different landscapes. Recently, scientists checked the nests and were surprised to find a Polyrhachis femorata ant colony in one of the boxes. The shock factor came not because the insects had been moved into a box intended for bats and pygmy possums, but because the entire ant colony was dead.

Well, they pretended to be dead. One ant gave away the game by moving a little. It is not unknown for individual ants of other species to mimic death to fool predators. However, this is the first time an entire nest of ants fell over in self-defense, likely caused by the noise and movement when the scientists opened the box.^[4]

6 A child-sized rat

The island of Lupa Vanguna belongs to the chain of the Solomon Islands. For years, locals have maintained that Vanguna’s Zaira forest hid a huge rat they called ‘vika’. But despite the size of the animals, scientists were unable to find a specimen.

In 2017, loggers felled a tree on the island and found the body of an animal killed during the event. It was a vika. The carcass ultimately proved the existence of the species, and soon finding a live vika now became the new goal.

Researchers from various institutes placed camera traps throughout the forest. Discouragingly, a few years passed. Then suddenly several vika rats posed for the cameras, giving the world its first look at the elusive creatures.

About 95 photos showed four different individuals. At about the same length as a newborn child, the vika is now officially one of the largest and rarest rats in existence.^[5]

5 The Hollywood flock

Islands are known for palm trees, coconuts and beaches. But true blue American bison? Located off the coast of Los Angeles, Santa Catalina Island is unique in that it has been home to a herd of wild bison since 1924.

The enormous beasts were transported there by a film studio to star in two films being made on the island. The Herd didn’t make it into one film and it’s not clear if they played a role in the second. Regardless, when filming was finished and the crew departed Santa Catalina, the fourteen animals were left behind.

The bison adapted to island life and multiplied. Some of their descendants even appeared on the big screen after being filmed for Stanley Kramer’s in 1971 Bless the beasts and children.

Today there are about 100 animals and they are the lifeline of many Sana Catalina families who rely on bison tourism, a booming industry that attracts hundreds of visitors to the island every year.^[6]

4 Unknown life forms

In 2015, volcanic activity created a new island in the South Pacific. The event provided biologists, ecologists, volcanologists and geologists with an extremely rare opportunity to see how island ecosystems form, starting with microbial life.

Experts expected that the first settlers would be the same organisms that claim newly available land when a glacier retreats. These goobers, called cyanobacteria, were nowhere to be seen on the island. Instead, the team encountered unknown life forms: microbes that digest and break down sulfur and atmospheric gases.

The microbes looked very similar to other species known to live in very different environments. Because the latter include deep-sea hydrothermal vents and hot springs, this suggested the new critters originated deep underground. This was unusual because the first bacteria on a new island should logically come from bird droppings or seawater.

Without what happened next, the island might have revealed more evolutionary riddles and answers. Seven years after it formed, another volcanic eruption blew the island to smithereens, leaving many disappointed scientists. ^[7]

3 A turtle that has been lost for 100 years

In the past, hunters have decimated the giant tortoise population on the Galápagos Islands. Despite this slaughter, people do not support the disappearance of one large turtle species. The Fernandina giant tortoise on Fernandina Island was last seen in 1906 and was believed to have become extinct due to volcanic eruptions.

In 2019, rangers from the Galápagos National Park were visiting the island when they found a huge turtle. Convinced that the female was a long-lost Fernandina giant tortoise, they sent her to Santa Cruz Island. There she was named “Fernanda” and taken to the giant tortoise breeding center of the Galápagos National Park.

Fernanda is about a hundred years old. Still, she can still have babies for decades. So when DNA testing confirmed she was a Fernandina Giant Tortoise, the next task was to find her a mate.

During the 2019 expedition, when Fernanda was discovered, rangers also found signs of at least two more turtles on the island. If one of them is a male Fernandina giant tortoise, the species could survive for a few more centuries.^[8]

2 A species that rebuilds itself

Caecilians are amphibians that resemble worms or eels. The island of São Tomé, in the Gulf of Guinea, has two species of caecilians that are found nowhere else on earth. In the north they are bright yellow. Their southern cousins ​​are yellow with brown markings.

For almost a hundred years, researchers could not decide whether they were the same species. Then a 2014 study confirmed that the caecilians were two different species and that they interbred. The research also delved into the genetic history of the animals, which yielded a remarkable story.

The data showed that all caecilians from São Tomé formed a single species until 300,000 years ago. During that time, volcanic activity spread lava flows across the island. It is believed that these currents divided the creatures into two groups and kept them separate, forcing them to evolve into different species.

The streams have now eroded and with no barriers between them, the northern and southern caecilians are producing offspring. Who knows, one day, through continued hybridization, these amphibians may transform themselves back into one species.^[9]

1 Gruesome hybrid rocks

In 2019, geologist Fernanda Santos traveled to an island off the coast of Brazil called Trinidade Island, one of the most isolated places on Earth. Apart from a small research center and a military base, the island is a natural paradise.

While exploring the beach, Santos found strange blue-green rocks. Not recognizing them, she took them back to her laboratory. Once the specimens were analyzed, however, her curiosity turned to horror.

The rocks were a new hybrid between natural materials and plastic waste. No stones covered in plastic. They were real rocks, formed by normal geological processes. But in this case, plastic invaded the materials Earth has used to make bricks for billions of years. The result was a number of unique hybrids.

Those that resemble sedimentary rocks are called ‘plastiglomerates’. “Plastistones” resemble rocks formed by moving lava, and “pyroplastics” resemble clastic rocks. This terrifying phenomenon was not limited to the island of Trinidad. Santos also discovered that the plastic rock formations had been reported years earlier in Britain, Hawaii, Japan and Italy.^[10]