Wallaces line

Wallace's line imaginary line postulated by A. R. Wallace as the dividing line between Asian and Australian fauna in the Malay Archipelago. It passes between Bali and Lombok islands and between Borneo and Sulawesi, then continues S of the Philippines and N of the Hawaiian Islands.

Wallace's line a hypothetical line, proposed by Alfred Russel Wallace, marking the boundary between the Oriental and Australian zoogeographical regions. Wallace's line is now placed along the continental shelf of SE Asia. To the west of the line Asian mammals such as monkeys predominate, while to the east of it the fauna is dominated by marsupials.

Wallace's line The important zoogeographical division which separates the Oriental and Notogean zoogeographical regions. Alfred Wallace, a zoogeographer and contemporary of Charles Darwin, first demarcated the boundary between the Oriental faunal region and the Australasian region with its distinctive marsupials. The boundary is known to this day as Wallace's line. There is a zone of mixing called ‘Wallacea’, and strictly the line defines the extreme western limit of Australasian mammals, and the eastern limit of the main Oriental fauna.