Socotra Island

Sitting off the coast of Yemen in the Arabian Sea, Socotra Island is to the Indian Ocean what the Galapagos are to the Pacific – a natural, open-air laboratory where more than 700 species of plants and animals have evolved that are found nowhere else on Earth.

The umbrella-shaped dragon’s blood trees – so called because of their red sap – are the most distinctive endemics, but there are a host of birds and reptiles that are also unique.