Hawaii’s geographical isolation has resulted in the development of unique and fragile ecosystems in which the arrival of a new species may create dramatic changes in the ecology, and now the economy, of the islands. Successful establishment rates for new species before the arrival of humans in the early 1st millennium AD may have been as low as one new species every 10,000 years (Loope, 1997). Only one terrestrial mammal, a bat (now extinct), reached the island chain without human assistance. Many other suborders are unrepresented; for example, the islands have no native snakes or frogs.
