No plant says "Hawai'i" better than the endemic 'Ohi'a Lehua tree. Its bright red flowers light up the forest canopy and provide food for many species of Hawaiian Honeycreepers (some of which are now sadly extinct). Thanks to all the folks who helped me identify things, including Neal Evenhuis,  Rob Cowie,  Ron Englund, and others.

The tropical Hawaiian climate makes it easy for cultivated house and yard plants to establish themselves in the wild. This Ground Orchid is apparently native to Singapore. The Bamboo Orchid hails from India and southeast Asia.

This Sweet Granadilla, a passion flower relative, is an invasive weed in Hawai'i and also the Galapagos. It is native to the South American Andes. It is probably the host plant for the nonnative Gulf Fritillary butterfly from the southeastern US.

Hawai'i has about 25 native species of Peperomia , including this one. The genus is pan-tropical.

This Geranium is a species endemic to Maui.

According to the history I learned, Sandalwood was once Hawai'i's biggest export until it was overharvested. For some reason, instead of replanting the trees and growing more, most of the former Sandalwood forests are now cattle ranches and such. The Sandalwoods on Maui had lush red flowers (see the Maui Amakihi and Blackburn's Hawaiian Blue photos below), contrasting with the yellow-green Big Island tree pictured here. No, that isn't a native bee pollinating it either, it's a European Honeybee (Apis mellifera).

The normal habitat in the highlands of the Big Island's Kona (dry) side is a forest of two trees, Naio and Mamane. Most of it has been destroyed and replaced with cattle ranches and military shooting ranges.

Another once-dominant Hawaiian tree that is much less common now is the famous Koa. Which leaf in the picture belongs to the Koa? Both of them! As this second photo shows, Koas start out with typically fernlike Acacia compound pinnate leaves, but older trees replace them with simpler "leaves" that are actually flattened stems. Demand for the beautiful Koa wood, used in furniture, picture frames, and other crafts, wiped them out from many forests. This probably contributed to the decline of the woodpecker-like Hawaiian honeycreepers, the Nukupu'u (of which less than ten individuals remain each on Maui and Kauai) and Akiapola'au (of which about 1000 still survive on the Big Island).

After living in mammal-less Hawai'i for centuries, the Akala lost the thorns that protected its mainland ancestors, the raspberries. Now non-native mainland raspberries have a competitive advantage in parts of Hawai'i where feral sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs eat or damage the Hawaiian endemic.

 Pukiawe is a common endemic upland shrub on Maui and the Big Island. Its berries are one of the foods of the Nene (see native birds, below). It used to be used in many native Hawaiian crafts.

The Ohelo is a Hawaiian relative of blueberries and cranberries, and is also eaten by Nene.

The rare Haleakala Silverswords have a more common cousin called Na'ena'e in Hawaiian.

The windward side of each Hawaiian island gets lots of rain, making it great habitat for mosses like this fern-like Thuidium. Oops, sorry, I dropped my pencil... Liverworts do well there too.

This is the Biggest club moss I have ever seen. Unlike true mosses like Thuidium, club mosses have vascular tissue, and so can grow erect off the ground. In the age of dinosaurs there were club mosses the size of trees, but in modern times this one's pretty impressive. That's my wife Airlie's hand in there for scale.

I really liked the pattern of sori (spore-dispersing structures) on this fern frond.

Several of my friends here at Duke study the Ginger family.

 Mystery flower #1 was a common weed, probably exotic, growing along trailsides in the moist Oahu uplands.

The strange asymmetrical half-flowers of the coastal Naupaka kauhakai (Scaevola sericea)  and a related mountain species inspired a Hawaiian legend that the Hawaiian god Pele cursed two lovers to be separated forever; they were later transformed by more sympathetic Hawaiian gods into two plants, with each species getting only half a flower.

 Mystery flower #3 was a ground cover, growing profusely near the water in the Kawainui Marsh on Oahu.

In this battle, chalk up a long-overdue win for the rain forest and a loss for this sport-utility vehicle.

Hawai'i has a whole genus of endemic damselflies. Rambur's Forktail is NOT one of them! It was introduced accidentally from the mainland US. This one is doing its part in population control though, eating one of its own species! To see a few Hawaiian endemic damsels and other odonates, see my odonate photos.

There is some debate about the proper English name of Blackburn's Hawaiian Blue, one of only two butterflies native to Hawai'i.

  I was looking for the nymphs of the Hawaiian endemic damselfly Megalagrion koloense, which live between the leaves of the 'Ie'ie vine. I never did find one, but instead, between the leaves of a small ginger-like tree, I found a Web-spinner! True to its name, it was enveloped in a little pocket of silk. It's the only time I've ever seen an insect of its group, the order Embioptera.

Hawai'i has no native ants. I'm not sure, but it probably also has no native scale insects. However, not only have both been introduced, they've been developing relationships; I found the ant species in the first photo tending the scale species in the second photo on a Hawaiian endemic Ohia Lehue tree on the Ma'akua Loop trail. I later found another  ant-scale association involving two other species on a different, unidentified tree species. When Hawai'i's exotic ants aren't tending scales, they wreak havoc on native insects and plants.

Hawai'i's beautiful endemic tree snails have been nearly wiped out, in part by introduced gastropods like this Giant African Land Snail. My neighbor in the campground kindly posed her foot for scale (I think she was a size 8).

I thought I had found a Freshwater chiton when I spotted this creature on a rock in Iao Stream, but when it started moving it turned out to be the chiton-like Brown Slug, Vaginulus plebeius. Native to Latin America, this critter has been introduced to the Galapagos (where it is displacing native snails) as well as Hawai'i, and is the intermediate host for the nematode Angiostrongylus costaricensis which can infect humans and damage our digestive tracts.

This Unidentified moth with an interesting cruciform shape was on an ornamental shrub at one of the big South Kohala resorts. I found Mystery fly #2, a bee mimic (maybe a Syrphid?), on the same shrub, as was the Dolichopodid fly Chrysosoma globiferum.

I found this Unidentified Millipede in the men's room of the Hawai'i Nature Center in the Makiki Valley.

Just as Airlie and I were returning our rental car to leave Hawai'i, this Really tiny wasp landed on the hood of the car. That's my index finger on the left for scale.

The streams were an interesting mix of a few native species with lots and lots of introduced ones. The most conspicuous freshwater crustacean was the Tahitian Prawn with its ridiculously long, spindly claws. Some people suspect that this edible prawn outcompetes the smaller native 'Opae (also a prawn).

The only reptiles native to Hawai'i are marine species like this Green Sea Turtle (although there's debate about a couple of skink species). This turtle was one of a group that was grazing on algae in shallow water, much like a herd of oceangoing cows.

 Jackson's Chameleon was established from released pets on Oahu. Apparently they're on the Big Island now too.

 I found this Gold Dust Day Gecko in the men's bathroom of a large marina. I saw many more that evening on the walls of a Mexican restaurant in Kailua-Kona, fencing for territory with nocturnal geckos.

The Metallic Skink was accidentally brought to Hawai'i from the Phillipines (I think). As it spreads, two other skink species which preceded it - nobody knows for sure if they are native, or hitchhiked in with the Polynesians - are disappearing. This one's eating a small cockroach.

Hawai'i has only one terrestrial snake, the Island Blind Snake, a tiny burrowing creature. It is native to southeast Asia but has reached Hawai'i, Florida, and many other places, probably hitching rides in potted plants and other soil containers. The state's very strict rules about snake importation (for example, the Honolulu Zoo is allowed to have only two snakes, and they both must be the same sex) combined with constant vigilance has kept any other species from invading, yet; this species may have gotten through because it's the world's only known parthenogenic snake, meaning that a single female can reproduce without mating with a male!

The Wrinkled Frog comes from Japan. This one was in a damp shady patch along a forest stream near Maui's Hana Highway.

You have to search hard to find Hawaiian native fish, but it's easy to spot introduced cichlids. Swordtails, guppies, armored catfish, and other favorites of the tropical fish pet trade are common too.

The uplands of Maui and the Big Island are well stocked with game birds. This Ring-necked Pheasant, a native of China (yes, they're introduced even in South Dakota, where it's the state bird), was beside the parking lot of the Haleakala National Park visitor center.

Chukar live higher up on Haleakala, and were the only bird I saw around the summit (note the lava rock in the background). I did hear a native bird up there, the critically endangered Ua'u or Dark-rumped Petrel (the Hawaiian name imitates their yodeling loon-like calls), but they didn't emerge until after dark so I couldn't get any pictures. The petrel is a seabird, but lives near the volcano's summit because it's the only place they can nest without being predated by feral cats and Mongoose.

Hawai'i has no native doves, but several species have been released there by humans. In addition to the cosmopolitan Rock Dove, Hawai'i is now inhabited by the Zebra Dove and the Spotted Dove, both Asian species.

Bulbuls also hail from tropical Asia, but are common on Oahu. The Red-whiskered Bulbul tended to be more shy, skulking in the forest understory, while the Red-vented Bulbul was much bolder, perching on exposed limbs, fences, and signs and even begging for handouts in the Bishop Museum's cafe.

While you can find most of Hawai'i's exotic birds in the cities, the Eurasian Skylark lives mainly out in the countryside, mostly on cattle ranches.

Wherever you would find Eurasian Starlings on the U.S. mainland, in Hawai'i you'll find the Common Myna.

I saw Java Sparrow (guess where it's from) mostly on Oahu; a few turned up on the Kona side of the Big Island too. The Chestnut Mannikin, which is also native to Java (and other parts of Asia), also ranges across multiple islands in Hawai'i.

The Saffron Finch is restricted to the Kona (dry) side of the Big Island, where it is very popular with tourists and suburban residents. It is native to South America. This one was eating the sticky fruits of Boerhavia coccinea, one of the plants my friend Norm Douglas is studying.

This exotic Yellow-fronted Canary serenaded the Whittington Beach Park campground from a big Australian Pine, another exotic species. It comes from Africa.

The Yellow-billed Cardinal from Brazil was introduced successfully only the Big Island. Its South American cousin the Red-crested Cardinal is common on Oahu.

I think the Maui Amakihi is now considered a separate species from the related Hawai'i Amakihi, as well as their very rare Kauai cousin. They're definitely different subspecies, at least...

The scarlet-and-black I'iwi, poster bird for Hawaiian honeycreepers, is now much rarer than its less brightly colored cousin the Apapane. The two species are similar, but for some reason the Apapane is not being decimated by Avian Malaria nearly as much as the I'iwi is, and so can be found at much lower elevations.

The endangered Palila is the only finch-billed Hawaiian honeycreeper which has not gone extinct yet. It eats primarily the seeds of Mamane trees and the beetle grubs that live in the seed pods. About 4,000 remain, all on the western side of Mauna Kea on the Big Island. The ancestor of modern Hawaiian honeycreepers is thought to have been a finch-like bird like this, in contrast to the many nectar-feeding species that exist today.

The Maui Alauhio used to be called a Creeper, but its behavior is much more reminiscent of a kinglet, warbler, or vireo. It and its probably extinct Oahu and Molokai relatives were recently split into a separate genus from the more traditionally creepy creepers on Kauai and the Big Island.

It's nearly extinct on Oahu and rare on Kauai, but the Elepaio is one of the Big Island's most common native birds. It was derived from an Asian family of flycatchers.

The Nene or Hawaiian Goose is Hawai'i's state bird. It went extinct in the wild; a captive breeding and release program has preserved the species, but the wild populations still can't breed successfully due to mongoose and feral cat predation.

Hawai'i's few remaining freshwater wetlands harbor populations of the endangered 'Alae Ke'oke'o, also known as the Hawaiian Coot. The few thousand birds left are scattered across the main islands.

Another endangered waterbird, though not a full species yet, is the 'Alae'ula, the Hawaiian subspecies of the Common Moorhen.

Hawai'i also has an endemic subspecies of Black-crowned Night Heron, called 'Auku'u by the Hawaiians. Unlike the Koloa (Hawaiian Duck), the Ae'o (Hawaiian Stilt), and the birds in the preceding three photographs, the 'Auku'u is not endangered; I saw loads of them on Oahu and Maui.

The only native bird you're likely to see in Honolulu is a seabird, the Fairy Tern. It's common in the unoccupied Northwest Hawaiian Islands, but mysteriously in the populated islands it lives only in trees in the biggest city. Note the baby one; I actually didn't see it when I first photographed the adult!

Hawaiians call the Great Frigatebird 'Iwa. They usually stay near the water, but this was one of a pair that flew over the Kawainui Marsh of Oahu, well inland.

When I visited Makapu'u Point one evening, a flight of Masked Boobies passed by in singles, pairs, and trios.

Due to logistical complications, I could spend only one day on Kauai. I spent it hiking the Pihea Ridge Trail in Koke'e State Park, along the edge of the Alaka'i Swamp. At one point I looked down the ridge to see white specks circling far below. They rose higher and gave me dazzling views of White-tailed Tropicbird or Koa'e Kea, a species I could only see from wave-tossed boats far offshore back in North Carolina! I later noticed them crossing the ridge through a notch, and so stood there and had great overhead views as well.

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 Joshua S. Rose