Gardner Pinnacles

The Gardner Pinnacles (Hawaiian: Pūhāhonu ) are two remote, uninhabited rocky islands, which protrude steeply from the Pacific Ocean. You are about 950 km north- west of Honolulu on Oahu and submitted within the Northwestern Hawaiian Island chain, the most difficult to access land mass dar.

The up to 52 m high rock with 24 035 m² have (0.024 km ²) only a small land area; However, she has surrounding coral reef with 2446 km ² on a considerable area. Like all the Hawaiian Islands are also the Gardner Pinnacles volcanic origin.

The rocks were on June 2, 1820, discovered by Joseph Allen, the captain of the American whaling ship Maro and baptized by him originally Gardner 's Iceland. They were, like many islands in the northwest of Hawaii, in April 1857 by the Hawaiian King Kamehameha IV annexed.

The reef is home to 27 species of stony corals, which are more species than in the reefs of the islands of Necker or Nihoa. Numerous fish species occur exclusively here. The rocks themselves are home to at least 19 species of birds, 12 of which breed there too. Well known are the Gardner Pinnacles also the one for which there very numerous occurring and endemic to Hawaii Napfschneckenart giant opihi ( Cellana talcosa ), on the other hand for the unexpected biodiversity of insects and spiders. In contrast, comes on the rocks only one kind of plant before, the purslane wedge reporting ( Atriplex portulacoides ).