Wanderlust World Wanderlust World The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the ancestral mammals of Hawaii (primarily bats and seals) arrived via natural rafting on vegetation mats.
Storms and ocean currents likely tore large masses of vegetation (with soil and hitchhiking animals) from the Americas or other Pacific shores, carrying them thousands of miles to the Hawaiian archipelago. This "waif dispersal" explains the presence of terrestrial mammals on one of the world's most isolated island chains.
No land bridges or human introduction (pre-Polynesian) were involved.