![]() ^ to top The Wallace Line Alfred Russel Wallace * Born 8 January 1823. The great green-winged Ornithoptera, which Wallace later dubbed 'the Prince among butterfly tribes', the man-like orangutan whose origin sparked Wallace's curiosity as had no mammal other than man himself, and the bird of paradise, which had never been exhibited in Europe, were other features of the Archipelago's giddy, divergent forms of life. Wallace had heard of the monstrous flowers called rafflesia that are "three-feet-wide and weigh 24 pounds!". The richest variety of fruits and the most precious spices were indigenous there. The first visit by a European naturalist to the Malay Archipelago had occurred only in 1776. Situated on the equator and bathed by the tepid water of three great tropical oceans, this area of 13,000 islands displayed an unheard-of, wonderful variety of species. This line is the narrow strait between Bali and Lombok.įrom 20th April 1854 to the 1st of April 1862, Wallace trekked the Malay Archipelago, today's Indonesia, wallowing in its wildlife. It became known as the Wallace Line and it is the most famous and most discussed biogeographical boundary in the world. This line separated marsupials from tigers, and honeyeaters and cockatoos from barbets and trogons. In the mid-19th century, Wallace discovered a mysterious line that separated two different faunal universes. A man from another time, the other man was a lanky, gentle, short-sighted English explorer and naturalist named Alfred Russel Wallace. In the late 1990s I became obsessed with another man, not my husband. Alfred Russel Wallace (seen here in 1908) is often referred to as 'the father of biogeography' in recognition of his work examining the geographical distribution of animals (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
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