Islands

In a remote cove on the Galápagos islands sea lions have recently started to hunt yellowfin tuna in response to dwindling fish stocks. The tuna are faster than the sea lion so they rely on teamwork. They corral the tuna into the cove with different sea lions, having different roles in the hunt. Working together they block the tunas escape until it tires and becomes stranded in shallow water.

Early morning on the Galápagos Islands and Jaime Chaves is catching Darwin’s finches, endemic to these islands, in order to continue decades of work studying the size of these birds' beaks. The beaks are changing shape and size, not over millions of years but from one generation to the next, and now scientists like Jaime are studying the role humans are playing on the lives of these birds.

Zanzibar red colobus monkeys are facing deforestation of their native home range and as a result are turning to raiding crops to get enough food. These foreign crops however have an unfortunate side effect of making the monkeys ill. So, they seek an unexpected solution: venturing further into the human world to find charcoal. Eating this aids in detoxifying and ensuring the monkeys' survival.

Islands are like miniature simplified Earths, where evolution is playing out at super speed right before our eyes. Journey from the Galapagos to the edge of Antarctica to seek out animals responding to our changing planet in extraordinary ways.

On the Turks and Caicos Islands, animals have a far greater ability to adapt to a changing world than we thought. Anthony Herrel studies how Silver Key anoles have evolved to keep up with destructive weather in the tropics. With changes in legs, feet, and aerodynamics, evolution is taking place at incredible speeds.