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"In this Archipelago there are two distinct faunas rigidly circumscribed, which differ as much as those of South America and Africa."

— Alfred Russel Wallace

In This Archipelago There Are Two

In this Archipelago there are two distinct faunas rigidly circumscribed, which differ as much as those of South America and Africa.

— Alfred Russel Wallace
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About this quote

Alfred Russel Wallace wrote this observation to the naturalist Henry Walter Bates in 1858, after crossing what would become known as the Wallace Line — the biogeographic boundary between the Asian and Australasian faunal regions. The dramatic difference between animals on either side of this narrow strait in the Indonesian archipelago was a key piece of evidence for the geographical isolation that drives species divergence. The Wallace Line is now recognized as one of the sharpest biological boundaries on Earth.

Source

Letter to Henry Walter Bates, 1858

The events which formed a turning-point in my life were, first, my acquaintance with Bates, and second, my reading Malthus.
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