The Wallace Line
River
In the middle of the nineteenth century, British zoologist Alfred Russel Wallace observed that the animals east of Bali and Borneo were closely associated with the species found in Australia. Meanwhile, the animals on the islands west of Lombok and Sulawesi had more in common with creatures from the Indo-Malayan region of Southeast Asia. This biological border has since been named the Wallace Line. In Papua, for example, there are major areas of dense forest and swamp similar to those of Sumatra and Kalimantan, but the large mammals of Asia, such as the tiger, rhinoceros, and elephant, are absent. Instead, many Australia-originating species are found on this side of the Wallace Line, including wallabies, carnivorous mice, bandicoots, and flying possums such as the sugar glider, which uses the membrane stretched between its legs to help it float from tree to tree. This region also features tree kangaroos, which are at home among the branches but find walking difficult. The spiny anteater, a creature related to the duck-billed platypus, also is found here.
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