The world's remotest inhabited island is home to a bird that forgot how to fly
Hidden in the South Atlantic, the world's most isolated community shares its volcanic home with the Inaccessible Island rail, a unique bird that evolved to lose its flight in the absence of predators.
Tristan da Cunha sits 1,750 miles from the nearest mainland, making it the most remote inhabited place on Earth. This extreme isolation has turned the island into an evolutionary laboratory where species evolve fifty times faster than on continents. Among its unique residents is the world's smallest flightless bird, which lost the ability to fly because the island's volcanic ecosystem lacked natural predators to escape from.
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