Original subtitles

-Visitors to the island say that they hear people

screaming and crying.

[Narrator] A remote island is home to a rare and bizarre tree.

-When it’s sliced open, it bleeds a resin of deep crimson.

[Narrator] An abandoned Japanese island provides a

glimpse into an industrious history

-It really does bare an uncanny resemblance to a battleship

[Narrator] Isolated.

Scarce on resources.

Islands are worlds unto themselves.

Bizarre creatures.

Ancient gods and haunting ruins.

Baffling murders and deadly spirits.

What will be discovered on Earth's mysterious islands?

[rolling thunder]

[Narrator] Venice. “The Floating City.”

Built on 118 islands off the coast of Northern Italy,

it draws 30 million tourists a year to see

its architectural masterpieces.

-Venice is steeped in history and culture.

Tourists flock to famous sites like the Grand Canal,

St. Mark’s Square, and the Doge’s Palace.

[Narrator] But there are a multitude of lesser-known

landmarks on the many smaller islands in

the Venetian Lagoon.

-The Venetian Lagoon is a bay between Venice

and the Lido,

one of the Lagoon's barrier islands.

Most of these islands off Venice's shores have

settlements centuries old with monumental

art and architecture.

-But one island in the Lagoon stands out,

and not because of its pristine beauty.

Quite the opposite.

[Narrator] The island is Proveglia.

A mere 17 acres,

Proveglia’s claim to fame is that it is

completely uninhabited.

-It’s strange, really.

Proveglia is only 500 yards from the Lido and about

three miles south of Venice,

and yet it’s deserted and desolate.

-In 2018, the Italian government forbade travel to the island,

"Due to security reasons."

The question is, why?

[Narrator] Two curious explorers set out by rowboat.

-One of the first things you notice from a distance is

what appears to be a tall tower,

amongst a cluster of old buildings.

-As they approach the island,

they’re also intrigued by a flat,

geometric stone formation, a tiny island of its own.

-As they get closer,

they notice the overgrown dilapidated state of several

stone buildings close to the shore.

What are these buildings and how long have

they been abandoned?

[Narrator] The two explorers go ashore to

investigate the Island.

[♪ mysterious music playing]

-The first thing you notice when you step onto

Proveglia is that the main group of buildings

are in deep neglect,

with bushes and trees growing all around them.

-It really makes you wonder,

why have these buildings been abandoned when communities

are thriving on the Lagoon’s other tiny islands?

[Narrator] A chilling clue is discovered near the ruins of

one building that is somewhat separate from the others.

-They find a solitary tombstone,

with an inscription in Latin and a date written in

Roman numerals: 1793.

It's very strange.

[Narrator] Historical records reveal a dark connection

between Proveglia and one of the most devastating pandemics

to ever afflict mankind:

the Black Death, or Bubonic Plague.

[Dr. Alison Leonard] In 1793, a ship docked at Proveglia was

discovered to have plague-infected sailors so

all passengers were quarantined on the island.

[Dr. Amma Wakefield] At that point,

the Black Death had been ravaging Europe for

almost 450 years.

[Narrator] Originating in Asia in the mid-1300s,

the Black Death is second only to smallpox for

its death toll.

-The Bubonic Plague caused an estimated

75 million deaths around the world.

[Dr. Alison Leonard] Spread along the world’s

busiest trade routes,

it was transmitted either by infected rats and

fleas on ships or through the air.

-It attacked the lymphatic system,

resulting in boils the size of eggs in the

groin and armpits,

seeping blood and pus,

fever, diarrhea, vomiting, causing almost certain death.

The Black Death claimed its first victims in the

Republic of Venice in 1347 killing an

estimated 50,000 people.

-Venice lost hundreds of thousands of people

over the next 200 years,

forcing the republic to create a network of

quarantine stations in the Venetian lagoon

called Lazaretti.

[Narrator] In 1777, Venice’s Magistrate of Health made the

island of Poveglia the primary plague checkpoint

for the Republic.

-Proveglia was designated as a quarantine station.

Ships from the East coming to Venice first had to pass

through the island’s canal for inspection.

-When they approached the island,

they would first pass by the strange flat,

geometric formation that the rowers first saw.

Did this stone structure play a crucial role in the

island's quarantine station?

[Narrator] A closer examination of the formation

reveals it is eight-sided.

A perfect octagon, a shape historically used

for defensive fortresses and castles throughout the

Middle Ages in Europe.

[Dr. Amma Wakefield] For centuries,

the Republic of Venice had been the dominant trading

port of Europe because of its orientation on

major shipping routes.

But it also meant Venice was a major target for invaders.

[Narrator] In 1379, Genoa attacked Venice in the

War of Chioggia.

The hundreds of people living on Proveglia were

forced to evacuate.

-The Republic of Venice was forced to build a

more formidable defensive system in the Lagoon

to protect the city.

The first of these fortresses was built on Proveglia,

fully manned by artillerymen with heavy firearms.

[Narrator] But by 1793, when the tombstone was erected,

although the lazaretto, or quarantine station,

on Proveglia, was in operation,

the hard-fought wars were long over.

-The fort is clearly not from the Lazaretti era,

but near the tombstone,

there is also an impressive stone tower

visible from offshore.

-It's twice as high as any building on the island

so it would have offered a clear view

of approaching ships.

Could the tower have played a surveillance role in

Proveglia's quarantine station in or around 1793?

[Dr. Alison Leonard] When you examine the tower’s

architecture, the arches, the specific conical roof,

it appears to be the bell tower of a church.

[Dr. Amma Wakefield] Archival records confirm that the ruins

and the tower itself are from the Church of San Vitale,

dating back to the 12th century.

But the island's congregation drastically declined after the

War of Chioggia and the church fell into a state of neglect.

-The church was finally destroyed by Napoleon

in 1806 as part of his suppression

of Catholic institutions.

He turned the bell tower into a lighthouse.

So, the bell is long gone.

[Narrator] While not directly connected to

the quarantine station, the church ruins,

and its bell tower do help explain the location

and significance of the tombstone from 1793.

-The full Latin inscription on the single tombstone reads,

"Don't dig. Here rest those dead from contagion.

1793."

So, it's a mass grave.

This tombstone marks the place where plague victims from

the first quarantined ship were buried in that year.

[James Ellis] Proveglia continued as a plague

quarantine station for about 20 more years,

repeating its methods of treating the diseased and

burying the dead when infected ships were discovered.

But the island’s centuries-old plague history wouldn’t account

for its abandonment today.

[Narrator] Rumor has it so many bodies were burned on

Proveglia that half the island’s soil consists

of human ashes.

[Dr. Alison Leonard] The official estimate of the dead

buried on Proveglia from 1793 onwards is only 30 people.

But local legend claims 160,000 plague victims were

sent to what became known as,

"The Island of No Return."

-Others claim Proveglia was also a mass grave site

for Venice’s dead, with barges carrying

plague-infected corpses to Proveglia,

with the bodies either cremated to prevent the

disease’s spread or dumped into graves on the island.

-It’s these types of legends that have

inspired some locals to call Proveglia

“The Island of Ghosts.”

-Locals say that they hear the tortured souls of

the dead screaming and crying.

[bell ringing]

[Narrator] Photographs and video taken by island visitors

prior to its closure in 2018 reveal some artifacts

from a time period after the early 1800s.

-In the main building there are beds with

rotting mattresses,

leftover implements in industrial kitchens,

and frightening instruments and machinery.

-What was going on here?

Who inhabited this building after the quarantine station of

the early 1800s?

[Narrator] Proveglia archives reveal that in 1922 a

sanatorium was opened in the existing stone buildings,

focusing on elder care.

But there is another darker possibility of

what actually transpired.

-Outside another building,

just a few steps from the main hospital,

there is a smaller pavilion with a tell-tale

sign nearly covered by the undergrowth.

It reads, "Reparto Psichiatria,"

which in English means,

"Psychiatric Department."

-Local lore says that there was a place

on the island that housed Venice’s mentally ill.

It’s said that this asylum not only imprisoned the insane

but also drove "the sane crazy,"

inspiring a new nickname for Proveglia:

"Madhouse Island,"

[Narrator] Video and photographs reveal cramped

cell-like rooms, gruesome red stains,

and scrawled messages on the walls of the upper floors.

-Visitors also report being terrorized by the ghost

of an evil doctor.

-People say that he led the asylum and

performed barbaric experiments,

including force-feedings, lobotomies, and the

use of electric shocks.

-Locals say this evil doctor also chained

patients to their beds and

tortured them with hammers, chisels, and drills.

[Narrator] Although no official records have been found,

Several local legends persist that the

doctor did exist.

The sanatorium on Proveglia was closed in 1968.

The island was used to grow crops for a few years

afterwards but then left to decay.

[Dr. Alison Leonard] Now desolate and overgrown,

Proveglia is under strict control by

the Italian government.

Their many attempts to either sell the island or

re-develop it, have failed.

[Dr. Anthony Cantor] Whether it’s because of the

tortured souls of Proveglia’s plague pits,

or the doctor’s victims crying out for mercy,

Proveglia is still known by many as,

“The World’s Most Haunted Island.”

[Narrator] Leaving the island and its

long-deserted ruins behind, its tragic legacy remains.

Locals warn that scorched-black bones from

plague victims can still be found on

Proveglia's rocky banks.

"The Island of Ghosts" remains abandoned,

awaiting the next visitors who dare to brave its shores.

The Wallacean Islands form an archipelago in the

eastern part of Indonesia that is a world of its own,

entirely separated from both the Asian and

Australian continental shelves.

-Millions of years ago,

the world’s continents were mostly connected,

however, over time and through the movement of

their tectonic plates,

they've separated from each other,

forming the islands and the continents we recognize today.

-But the Wallacean islands are fascinating because

they've never been connected to the nearby

continents of Australia or Asia.

And that makes it very hard for animals to get

from those continents to the Wallacean Islands.

-So the fauna that has evolved here in Wallacea

is highly unique... and this is no more evident

than in places like Flores Island,

where the Komodo dragon has been living for

one million years.

[Narrator] Flores is situated in the southern end

of the Wallacean Islands.

At its highest point towers Poco Mandasawu,

a lava dome rising almost 8,000 feet above the island.

And nearby lies the volcano of Kelimutu,

famous for its crater lakes.

-The region around Kelimutu is the traditional

land of the Lio people.

And an anthropologist studying this region collected

some revealing eyewitness accounts from them.

In the dense,

mountainous jungle they frequently spotted

what they call the lai ho’a.

-Lai ho’a essentially means ape man.

And what the Lio described was a very short, upright,

walking individual, covered in hair.

[Narrator] The anthropologist records several

supposed sightings.

He learns that to the Lio,

the lai ho’a is part of the landscape,

and is alive and well, living in the mountains.

-Legends or myths of mysterious creatures or

ape-men living among us are not unique to the Lio.

The legend of Bigfoot is well documented,

and there have been countless sightings of him in the forests

of North America,

yet no hard evidence has ever been located.

[Narrator] In 2003, a group of paleo archaeologists

excavating the Liang Bua Cave in

Flores Island unearth what they think is

the skull of a small child.

-Since the Liang Bua Cave is famous for containing

remains of humans that are up to 10,000 years old,

it wouldn’t be surprising to find the skull of a

small child here.

-But if you look closely, you can see that the teeth

are actually all permanent...

...Meaning that this is, in fact, a fully grown adult.

[Narrator] As the paleo archaeologists keep excavating,

they recover a large part of its skeleton.

-The skeleton is of an adult female aged

around 30 years.

She would have only stood at about

three and a half feet tall and weighed anywhere

She would have from 60 to 70 pounds.

-This is very much like the size of a hobbit,

one of those fictitious,

tiny creatures with big, hairy feet.

-This is a skeleton that has never previously been recorded.

It's unknown to science.

Could this be the lai ho’a,

the ape-man described by the Lio people?

[Narrator] The archaeologists eventually return to the

Liang Bua Cave and discover stone tools

throughout a number of different layers,

dating from 190,000 to 50,000 years ago.

Placing the hobbit in a similar timeframe.

-The tools are found close to the remains of a

Stegodon that is a now-extinct elephant-like species

that roamed large parts of Southeast Asia

about 50,000 years ago.

-So this smaller framed species was also capable

of shaping tools and hunting these animals...

It means that despite its small brain size,

it was by no means unintelligent.

[Narrator] It is thought that one of our ancient human

ancestors arrived in the Indonesian archipelago.

On the nearby island of Java,

several different sites have turned up the

remains of Homo erectus,

indicating that this early species of human was

undeniably living very close to Flores Island.

[Dr. Alison Leonard] Homo erectus appeared out of Africa

almost 2 million years ago and was the first to have body

proportions similar to that of Homo sapiens,

that's us, modern humans.

So could it be that this smaller human species descended

from Homo erectus?

[Narrator] Here in Java,

stone tools dating back 750,000 years were discovered.

-At the time, they were theorized to have

been made by Homo erectus.

-This means one of two things:

either those tiny humans arrived here on their

own or they evolved from a Homo erectus population

already living on Flores.

-Apart from the obvious differences in their body size,

the skull of the hobbit is very different

from that of Homo erectus.

[Narrator] The brain of the hobbit found in the cave would

have measured 23 cubic inches,

which is about the size of a chimpanzee’s.

The brain of homo erectus, however, was more than

twice as big, roughly 60 cubic inches.

-If this smaller species were to have evolved

from Homo erectus,

it would mean it gradually became smaller.

But this would actually require huge evolutionary

reversals in both body and brain size,

something which contradicts normal evolutionary patterns.

[Dr. Dan Riskin] There is one possible theory as to how this

could have happened...

...Because this is an island,

Homo erectus could have become smaller over time

through a process known as insular dwarfing.

[Narrator] Insular dwarfing is an example

of the island effect,

a phenomenon related specifically to islands.

It holds that when resources are scarce and

space is limited, big animals shrink,

and little ones get bigger.

-We have seen this phenomenon occur with other mammals

in similar contexts like the hippos on Cyprus who

shrank to the size of sea lions.

-So, it is possible that Homo erectus could have

gotten to Flores Island and over the

course of thousands of years shrunk to be

as small as the remains found in the

Liang Bua Cave.

-But if this small human species really was descended from

Homo erectus, and just shrank over time,

certain fundamental similarities in the skeletons

of these and homo erectus should exist.

-The feet of the smaller species of human found on

Flores Island are exactly what you would think of

when you picture the feet of a fictional hobbit,

like Frodo Baggins... Relative to the rest of its size,

they're pretty large,

about 75% of the length of the femur,

whereas for us it's about 55%.

-Incredibly, we can actually compare these

smaller feet to the footprints of Homo erectus.

They have been found preserved in the ground in Kenya.

These relatively big feet don’t match the footprints we

can see here.

Homo erectus prints are almost indistinguishable

from our own,

while these feet are not even close.

[Narrator] Homo erectus is one of only several early

iterations of what eventually evolved to

become modern humans.

On the evolutionary time scale,

Homo erectus appeared quite recently,

while several other older species of humans have

played a role in our development.

-The wrist bones of this smaller species are

totally different.

They lack certain distinct features that have evolved with

humans over the course of hundreds of thousands of years.

For example, a bone in our wrists,

known as the trapezoid bone,

is a completely different shape from that

of the specimens on Flores.

-Their wrists really appear to resemble those of chimpanzees,

but they also bear a resemblance to

those of Homo habilis,

a much older species of hominin than Homo erectus.

[Narrator] Homo habilis is one of the most ancient of our

human ancestors and inhabited large parts of

sub-Saharan Africa from around two and a half

to 1.4 million years ago.

-It’s possible that this version of early human somehow

made the trek eastward from Africa and

over time evolved into the hobbit.

But it's impossible to know for sure.

We need more evidence in the form of bones to be

able to prove this.

[Anthea Nardi] So how did they even get to Flores Island,

it’s always been an island.

How did they make their way across the sea?

[Dr. Dan Riskin] We’ve always assumed that these early humans

didn’t build boats, but what if that’s wrong?

What if they built a vessel that could take them over,

or maybe they hitched a ride on a piece of debris

that floated across the water.

We just don’t know.

[Dr. Alison Leonard] What we do know is that it was

one of the last early human species to go extinct,

and it would have started to do so around the same time

as Homo sapiens arrived on Flores Island

50,000 years ago.

[Narrator] Until new evidence emerges,

the hobbit of Flores Island will remain a mystery.

Of Japan's four main islands,

Kyushu is its southernmost and third largest.

To its west, in the East China Sea,

lie a number of little islands,

one in particular with a curious profile:

Hashima Island.

-The south end of Hashima Island is

broad and flat,

but as you move northwards it rises gradually,

and its center is dominated by massive rectangular buildings.

These give way to shorter, squat buildings,

before the island tapers off into a point

at its northern end,

making it look very much like a ship’s bow.

[James Ellis] Buildings are constructed helter-skelter

on top and around each other.

There doesn't seem to be much method to the madness.

And there is a mess of concrete block towers and

what looks like industrial equipment along the shoreline.

-There's also an enormous seawall which protects the

island from the worst of the ocean.

Japan, as we know, frequently gets

visited by typhoons.

Considering how small this island is,

it would definitely need significant protection when hit

by such winds and high seas.

-From a distance, it really does bear an uncanny

resemblance to a battleship.

The seawall is essentially like its hull,

which is why it received the nickname, Gunkanjima,

or Battleship Island.

Clearly this place was inhabited,

but who would want to live here?

[Narrator] The areas where Gunkanjima meets the

sea are all flat,

while the buildings are constructed on steeper terrain,

rising towards the center of the island.

On closer inspection, it becomes evident that the

shoreline actually consists of reclaimed land.

-Reclaimed land is when land is “created,"

either by removing the water, say by a dam,

or by raising the level of the land.

In other words,

by pouring landfill into the water until it reaches

above the water line.

-But in order to do that on this scale,

you would need a lot of rock.

Ferrying all that over from the Japanese mainland would

be very time-consuming and expensive.

[Dr. Anthony Cantor] The reclaimed areas make up a large

portion of Gunkanjima,

giving the island lot more space.

And from the looks of it,

the island has all the amenities that you'd want

in a little village.

[Narrator] There's also the remains of what looks to have

been a swimming pool, as well as a public bath.

-So the people who lived here were definitely in it

for the long haul.

They wanted to be as comfortable as possible out

on this island.

-Even with the reclaimed land, there is almost no space here.

High-rise apartment buildings crowd out much of the island.

Some of the apartments are tiny,

one-bedroom spaces,

whereas others have two or three bedrooms and

are more spacious,

indicating that entire families lived here.

-The apartments still have things inside them.

TVs, children’s toys, and appliances litter some

of the rooms.

[Dr. Anthony Cantor] And the TV set looks like it was from

the 1960s or 70s, really not that long ago.

[Dr. Amma Wakefield] This place must have been

abandoned pretty suddenly.

[Dr. Sarah Klassen] Gunkanjima itself measures only

about 16 acres, but for such a tiny island,

the population must have been pretty high,

because there are a lot of apartment buildings.

So people lived and worked here,

but what exactly were they doing?

[Narrator] In the southern half of the island,

a small opening leads to a concrete and brick passage

that descend into the ground.

-What you can see here are reinforced walls,

but once you descend to around 23 feet,

there is a little opening where you can see that a tunnel

continues deeper into a shaft.

-If I was to guess, I would say these are

different entrances into a mine.

[Dr. Anthony Cantor] The Japanese had used coal for fuel

for centuries,

but they only began doing so on an industrial scale

in the 19th century.

[Narrator] Historically, Japan forbade most nations

from having any diplomatic or trade relations.

This all changed when Commodore Matthew Perry,

an American naval officer,

sailed into Tokyo Bay with four gunships and forced Japan

to open up to trade.

-Commodore Perry’s visit sparked this period of

modernization and industrialization that we now

refer to as the Meiji Restoration.

And central to this process was coal.

[Narrator] In 1890, the Mitsubishi Corporation bought

Gunkanjima and sank a 650-foot shaft into

the ground below.

By 1916, coal production was in full swing,

and the island housed some 3,000 workers.

[Dr. Amma Wakefield] So this is where all the rock they

needed to reclaim the land around the island came from,

the coal mines.

[Dr. Sarah Klassen] But it wasn’t only the island’s

population that increased,

so too did Japan’s imperial ambitions.

They needed resources to fuel their unbelievably

rapid modernization,

and Japan itself didn’t have enough,

so they turned their eyes to Korea and China.

-They needed workers for their mines

and to build their railways,

and so Chinese and Korean people were forced

to perform backbreaking labor under

very difficult conditions.

It was basically slavery.

[Narrator] Many such laborers were sent into the coal mines.

During the Second World War,

roughly 600 Korean workers were forced to work

in the mines of Gunkanjima.

They did so under unimaginable duress and

were subject to random acts of cruelty

from their Japanese guards.

-We don't know for sure,

but it is thought about 20% of the Korean laborers

on Gunkanjima died.

This would have been a real hell on earth

for a lot of people.

-And a lot of people really lived here.

In total, there were over 30 apartment towers built

on the island.

They kept building them throughout the Second World War

in order to meet the Japanese empire’s enormous

demand for coal.

Such “good” housing, however,

was reserved for the Japanese,

not for the Korean laborers.

[Dr. Anthony Cantor] By 1959,

these 30 apartment towers housed

over 5,000 people.

This was Gunkanjima’s peak,

and it was home to a large community of miners,

company office workers, and their families.

-Remember, this is a tiny island.

Putting over 5,000 people here would make the population

density here unbelievably high.

[Narrator] The population density of today’s Mumbai is

around 73,000 people per square mile for its

22 million inhabitants.

-You may think that that's a lot... because it is.

But on Gunkanjima this statistic is way higher.

The population density of this island translates to over

216,000 people per square mile.

Almost three times as dense as Mumbai.

[Narrator] As Japan began to transition to oil

throughout the 1960s,

the need for coal began to wane.

Cheap oil from the Middle East began

supplanting local resources,

and by 1973, oil was making up 78% of

Japan’s energy supply,

90% of which was imported.

-So there was no longer any need for places like Gunkanjima.

By 1974 it had mined its last piece of coal.

The mines were shuttered for good and the people who called

the island home relocated to the Japanese mainland.

[Dr. Anthony Cantor] So the island was left to the elements.

But if these abandoned buildings could talk,

you’d get a recitation of everything that makes us human.

All the aspects of humanity, both good and bad,

have featured in the story of this island.

[Narrator] Gunkanjima is now a window into Japan's past.

It symbolizes the Meiji Restoration and

Japan's rapid transition from a feudal to

an industrial society,

as well as the hardship that was part of this process.

Nestled between the Horn of Africa and

the Arabian Peninsula,

lies the Yemeni island of Socotra,

the largest land mass in an archipelago

of the same name.

-While it’s the biggest island in this cluster,

Socotra is still pretty small.

It’s basically a third of the size of Jamaica.

But you’re unlikely to take a vacation here,

it’s one of the most isolated landforms on Earth.

[Narrator] There are only about 50,000 people

on this remote island,

with goats outnumbering humans 4 to 1.

-The goats are everywhere,

in the country, in the streets,

and even in the restaurants.

-When you read about Socotra you'll notice that

the words used to describe it have a

certain tone to them.

Striking...

...Mysterious...

...Otherworldly.

So why is this island so odd-looking?

[Narrator] Socotra is believed to have been once

part of the supercontinent of Gondwana.

Over millions of years, Gondwana slowly came apart,

thanks to what's known as plate tectonics.

-Gondwana's geological breakup led to both the

creation of the Socotra archipelago and its isolation.

The buckling of the plates also increased the island's

height which contributed to its otherworldly geology.

-But it’s not just the Geology here that's so wild,

it’s the Ecology.

If you look around the island,

it’s covered with things that you just don’t see

in neighboring Somalia or Yemen,

or anywhere else on earth for that matter.

[Narrator] The island’s unusual geology has created an

incredible array of landscapes and climates,

from evergreen forests to semi-arid deserts.

And this leads to a wide range of flora and fauna.

[Dr. Dan Riskin] UN biologists did a survey of everything

living on this island.

And when they were done,

they had clocked over 700 endemic species.

That means species that are found nowhere else on Earth. And when they were done,

It's no wonder people consider this an alien place.

[Narrator] But of all the wild things on the island,

there is nothing as unusual or as mysterious

as the Dracaena cinnabari, the Dragon Blood tree.

To the locals, it’s known as the heart of Socotra.

-This tree is a big part of why people describe the

island as being otherworldly.

It basically looks like an upside-down tree,

one that can grow up to 30 feet and live hundreds

and hundreds of years.

[Dr. Alison Leonard] The appearance of the

Dragon Blood tree

isn't the most unusual thing about it, for that,

we can just take a look at its name.

In short, the tree bleeds.

Sort of.

If you take a knife and slice the surface,

it literally looks like you're cutting into flesh.

-What the ancients thought was blood is actually the sap

or resin of the tree.

-This resin was especially prized in ancient times as it

was used for everything

from the mystical arts, like alchemy,

to more everyday products like varnishes

and toothpastes.

But today it’s used for lots of different ailments,

even in luxury skincare lines as it's said

to rejuvenate the skin.

[Narrator] Chemical analysis reveals that compounds in the

Dragon Blood tree give its sap antibacterial and

anti-carcinogenic properties.

And it can boost immune function.

-Recent animal studies have also suggested that the resin

speeds up the healing of wounds and

reduces clotting time.

So that's kind of perfect for a sap that looks like blood.

-Studies into the medicinal uses of the sap are still in the

early stages so who knows what other magical properties

it might possess.

But how does the tree pull off its most

magical feat, survival?

[Narrator] The tree itself is a marvel of natural engineering.

You don’t usually see trees like this in places

like this because dry earth can’t generally

sustain much foliage.

-Given the Dragon tree isn’t typically anywhere near

a water source,

and doesn’t get rain except during monsoon season,

how does it survive?

[Narrator] While the Dragon Blood tree does have roots that

draw water from the earth when there’s water to be found,

its ability to moisturize is largely due

to its strange appearance.

-The odd upside-down shape of the tree isn't random;

it's an amazing evolutionary adaptation.

It functions as a moisture trap,

capturing water from the atmosphere via fog and clouds,

and drawing it through its body.

[Narrator] The Dragon Blood tree also has the capacity to

store the water it collects.

In one study of the trees, researchers found that their

leaves have a water content of 83% while the wood itself

is 78% water.

Remarkably, these trees can hang on to that

moisture months into a drought.

-But this tree isn’t just saving itself.

The Dragon tree actually draws water into the soil and

can provide the nearby earth with more water

than it gets from rainfall,

making it a vital part of the island’s ecosystem.

It’s truly a giving tree.

[Narrator] It’s called an umbrella species because it

protects a whole ecosystem beneath it from geckos

to flowering plants.

-The biggest threat to the tree,

and the island in general, is climate change.

The semi-desert climate here has always been punishing but

in recent years,

the rainy season has become much less rainy,

which means the island has faced severe droughts.

-It’s predicted that the number of Dragon Blood trees

will drastically decline over the next 30 to 80 years.

-Remember, there are a number of plants and creatures

that only exist under the canopy of the Dragons Blood tree.

It is a crucial piece of the island’s biodiversity.

Without it the entire system is at risk.

[Narrator] In a way, the Dragon Blood tree is

the perfect symbol for the climate crisis.

[Dr. Dan Riskin] The tree is what you might call

a keystone species.

That's named after a keystone in an arch,

it's that one stone that if you take it out,

the whole thing collapses.

If you lose this one weird tree,

who knows how many of the 700 unique species of

flora and fauna will go with it,

and these are species found nowhere else on Earth.

It's a house of cards,

and we're putting ourselves in danger too.