Amazon Insect Biodiversity

600 miles from the Ecuadorian coast, the Galapagos archipelago rises from the Pacific. It's an evolutionary laboratory, shaped by primordial forces, providing us with clues to the origins of life. The birth of the islands began five million years ago, as a geological hotspot travelled across the ocean floor, bubbling up lava through cracks in the crust as it went. The oldest of the volcanos are now being swallowed up by the sea, where only the crescent shaped rim of the ancient crater remains...

Although largely unknown to most travelers, one of the most influential ancient cultures of South America is that of Chavín. It served as an important pilgrimage site from roughly 1200-500 B.C.E. As it rose in prominence, artwork bearing its religious symbols began appearing throughout the central Andes and down to the Peruvian coast. This expansion points towards a widespread transformation of the Andean belief system within the archeological timeline, in what's been dubbed the Early Horizon.

Within the coastal desert of north-central Peru, a series of river valleys flow down from the towering Andes into the sea. In recent decades, archeological excavations in this region have begun to uncover the remains of some of the earliest ancient cities within the Americas. Dozens of step-pyramid complexes have already been unearthed across numerous sites, while many more still hold their secrets buried beneath the sands. Remarkably, the construction of some of these have now been shown to ...