Alfred russel wallace line

Line separating Asian and Australian fauna

For the line in triangle geometry, see Simson line.

The Wallace line or Wallace's line is a faunal boundary line drawn in by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and named by the English biologist T.H.

Huxley.

It separates the biogeographical realms of Asia and 'Wallacea', a transitional zone between Asia and Australia formerly also called the Malay Archipelago and the Indo-Australian Archipelago (Present day Indonesia).

To the west of the line are found organisms related to Asiatic species; to the east, a mixture of species of Asian and Australian origins is present. Wallace noticed this clear division in both land mammals and birds during his travels through the East Indies in the 19th&#;century.

The line runs through Indonesia, such as Makassar Strait between Borneo and Sulawesi (Celebes), and through the Lombok Strait between Bali and Lombok, where the distance is strikingly small, only about 35&#;kil