No Animal Can Cross This Line
The Mysterious Wallace Line: A Tale of Two Islands
Have you ever heard of an invisible line that separates different worlds, all within a distance of 35 kilometres? This is the story of the Wallace Line, a biogeographical boundary discovered by Alfred Russel Wallace in 1859.
Alfred Russel Wallace, a British naturalist from the 19th century, proposed the Wallace Line as the boundary between the Oriental and Australian faunal zones. The line runs from the Indian Ocean through the Lombok Strait (between Bali and Lombok), northward through the Makassar Strait (between Borneo and Celebes), and eastward, south of Mindanao, into the Philippines Sea. Although many zoogeographers no longer see the Wallace Line as a regional boundary, it does mark an abrupt distribution limit for many important animal groupings. Many fish, bird, and mammal groups are well represented on one side of the Wallace Line but poorly or not at all on the other.
The islands of Bali and Lombok in Indonesia. While they may appear close on a map, the animal life on either side is remarkably distinct. Animals like tigers and elephants found in Asia are present on Bali, while Lombok is home to Australian creatures like kangaroos and komodo dragons.
