Remains of a Rainbow glories in flora and fauna found nowhere else on our planet, lush tropical blossoms bursting with color, tiny flowers so rare that scarcely a dozen wild specimens have been found; quick-footed beetles that sparkle like living jewels; fish that can climb 1,000-foot waterfalls, noble, magnificent birds -- more than 140 creatures and plants in all, each captured in fullcolor and black-and-white photographs and a concise yet detailed individual description. From the rainbow-eye damselfly to the Crested Honeycreeper, the Kamehameha butterfly to the hidden-petaled abutilon, the Mauna Loa vampire bug to the Laysan Finch, all are vulnerable and many are endangered. A few of these species are on the very brink of extinction. The delicate balance of their environment, intact for millions of years, has been upset by invaders from the outside world. As W. S. Merwin notes in his quietly urgent foreword, "It has been said that more species have been lost in Hawai'i during the past 200 years than in the whole of North America since Columbus." Shaped by countless centuries of isolation, Hawaiian wildlife has proved only too vulnerable to outsiders -- from whalers, sealers, and sandalwood loggers to alien stowaways, plant and animal alike.

These forces have torn great rents in the delicate web of island ecology.