03 September 2007

The Wallace Line

Ron here.

I wanted to mention that Tom and Amy are about to cross the Wallace Line. It runs through the Lombok Straights between the islands of Lombok and Bali. The Wallace Line marks the boundary between the Asian and Australian plant and animal life. Even though Lombok and Bali are only 15 miles apart, they are worlds apart when it comes to the life they support.

The reason for this stark difference is because what is now Australasia was once much further away from Asia. This allowed life to evolve differently. That is why there are no monkeys in Australia, and no marsupials (such as kangaroos) in Asia.

Here is a pretty good web page that describes what the Wallace Line separates.

Anyhow... once they cross it, they will truly be in Asia, as far as the plants an animals are concerned.

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