Togean Islands - Sulawesi, Indonesia

Sulawesi (SOO-lah-WEH-see), or Celebes, is one of the most beautiful destinations in all of Indonesia. It is the world’s eleventh largest island. With its beauty and natural riches, Sulawesi could become one of the major nature-based tourism centers in Southeast Asia.

The island has a distinctive shape that has often been compared to a spider. It lies just east of Kalimantan and north of Bali and is divided into two regions, north and south. Makassar and Manado are the island’s major cities.

North Sulawesi is mountainous, with fifty-four peaks, some of which are active volcanoes. The coast features long stretches of white sandy beaches lined with thousands of coconut trees. The waters host magnificent corals and a wealth of colorful marine life. However, world-class muck diving also exists in the area. North Sulawesi’s Bunaken Marine Park is one of Indonesia’s pinnacles for underwater enthusiasts. Situated off the northeastern peninsula of the island, Bunaken is one of many smaller islands that form a dotted line between Sulawesi and the Philippines. Scientists consider the triangle between the Philippines, Bali, and Papua the cradle of maximum marine diversity. Northern

Sulawesi is located in the heart of this triangle. This relatively small region hosts more than three thousand species of fish, five hundred species of coral, and thirty species of whales and dolphins.

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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.

Technorati Tags: Wallace Line, Alfred Russel Wallace, Lombok, Sulawesi, species found in Australia