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Butterfly, Polynesia, 2003

Blue-and-white eyespots adorn the velvety black wings of a butterfly on a Polynesian island. The diffuse Pacific islands make up some 1,400 specks of land scattered across an expanse of ocean more than twice the size of the continental United States. Unique ecosystems here force animals to adapt into subspecies that are often endemic to a single island.

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Islands of the Pacific," March 2003, National Geographic magazine)

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Photograph by Tim Laman