Where Worlds Collide: The Wallace Line

by Penny van Oosterzee

Alfred Russel Wallace, the father of biogeography, discovered the flora and fauna of the South East Asian islands and the extraordinary way in which they are geographically distinct. In a lively historical narrative, Penny van Oosterzee tells the story of his achievement. His legacy is the Wallace Line, a faunal barrier separating the Asian from the Australian: monkeys from kangaroos, weaver birds from cockatoos, and pheasants from parrots. This invisible boundary and the difference between the species it divides catalyzed Wallace's theory of evolution and prodded Darwin to articulate his own theory. In Where Worlds Collide, van Oosterzee follows Wallace's journeys through the islands of South East Asia. She draws on Wallace's natural history travelogue, The Malay Archipelago, a book he wrote after spending the years from 1854 to 1862 in Malaysia, Indonesia, and New Guinea. Explaining his theory and how it has been interpreted by biologists, van Oosterzee also re-creates Wallace's sense of excitement with his discoveries. She devotes a chapter to the diversity of butterfly wing patterns, for example, because Wallace was so enamored of them.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Natural History, Biology

234 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 2012

Reviews

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Known as the father of biogeography, Alfred Russel Wallace traveled extensively in southeast Asia, noting the distinct line that marked the division between Asian and Australian species. This book traces his voyages of discovery and explains how he came up with his theory, and also discusses the development of biogeography in general.

[Elliot Condous · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had a general understanding of the Wallace Line, so was good to learn all about that. Especially the porosity of the 'line'. Didn't know too much about Wallace either. He was a badass bug freak, if only they had iNaturalist back then L O L. Spending 8 years island-hopping through some of the remotest parts of the Malay Archipelago in the 1850s whilst managing to collect, preserve and transport over a hundred thousand specimens is very impressive. The book goes on many interesting tangents, just like Wallace's travels.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This really wasn't worth a four star rating, but I gave it four stars anyway. Why? because the cover is pretty. It features pictures of butterflies that are patterned to mimic dead leaves. I love that. You want to get an extra star from me, put pictures of butterflies camouflaging themselves as dead leaves on the cover. Or a picture of a carnivorous plant. Or a bioluminescent insect. I love those topics. That said, beyond the pretty cover, this book was only a three star effort. Good enough, but I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. It had been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for some time. In June 2017, its time arrived.

So, it's about this thing called the Wallace line, named after a 19th century explorer named Wallace. He noticed that in Indonesia, amongst all the small little islands, that some islands had "nature" that had a decidedly Asian character about it. And on some islands, sometimes just a few miles away, nature abruptly took on an Australian character. He mapped out the dividing line between the islands that exhibited these different characters and that line became known as the Wallace line. It's important in biology and evolution. And it's really interesting....which is why I bought this book. But I guess I wanted this book to be something else.

I was hoping this book would be more of a narrative about Wallace and his discoveries. It is, to a certain degree, but it's really more about the underlying science of the Wallace line. That's interesting too, don't get me wrong, but the author kind of ran into a few problems for me.

Problem #1: Fact-o-rhea.
What's fact-o-rhea? That's presenting too many facts. The Wallace line is about Asian critters over here, and Australian critters over there. The author decides to not just scratch the surface on that concept, but to go deep in explaining why creatures are distributed the way they are in this region. That's a good thing. But it turns out to be complicated. Really complicated. Some islands were once part of Australia. Some were once part of Asia. Some sprang up out of the ocean and have never been part of anything. Asia and Australia were once part of Pangea. Everything is moving around. There were ice ages. Some islands are big. Some are small. Some are in shallow water. Some are in deep water. Some are old, others young. Elephants can swim. Cicadas don't like to travel. Big cats don't like small islands. Large sections of the text are a recital of raw information about geology and animal distribution. Better take notes if you don't want to get lost!

Problem #2: conclusion-oxya
What's conclusion-oxya? That's a lack of conclusions. The author (as noted above) presents lots of facts, and clearly indicates that from them, a conclusion can be drawn. But the author often doesn't actually present that conclusion. We get to the 1 yard line a lot, but often don't seem to make it into the end zone. There's a lot of cliff hangers like "....Wallace was close to the answer, but if he'd only taken a second look at the fossil something-or-other, he would have known the answer was much more subtle".....without ever giving us the subtle answer that we apparently now know! Is it possible I'm just not smart enough for this book?

At any rate, I know a lot more about the Wallace line than I did in May 2017, and I certainly understand it a whole lot less. Perhaps not at all. But, the cover has got some great butterfly pictures. And, you will know a country by its Cicadas. Remember that: cicadas....they're key.

[Lloyd Downey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Without too much thinking about it, I had assumed that this was an adaptation of Alfred Wallace's writings about the biological dividing line between Asia and the Australian plate. However, I was wrong. It is a completely new work by Penny van Oosterzee which, of course, draws heavily on Wallace's own work. It has inspired me to read one of the books that I have by Wallace ...which remains unread on my shelves (somewhere). Just have to find it...then find the time to read.
Penny has done a good job with this book. She integrates the main findings: the abrupt change in mammal species between Bali and Lombok, changes in bird species and freshwater fish, the geological history of the various plates and the deep water dividing the various plates. In the process a fairly sympathetic picture of Wallace emerges. Hard working; driven by curiosity, living in extraordinarily primitive surroundings yet apparently putting up with it all with his characteristic sense of humour. He doesn't seem to be at all put out by having his "great idea" ; First ....The Sarawak Law...."that every species has come into existence coincident both in time and space with a pre-existing closely allied species".....and then in 1858 his paper "On the tendency of varieties to depart Indefinitely from the original type"...which outlined the manner of the origin of species by natural selection....shared with Charles Darwin. The author describes him as "chuffed because he had been welcomed into the select fraternity of naturalists whose interests took them beyond the mere description of series."
Penny includes a rather sad epilogue where she visits Ambon...where Wallace had described the clarity of the water and the beautiful coral and fishes....now she only saw through the cloudy water a rubbish tip of lifeless coral...the rest had been dredged and used as fill. I enjoyed the book...especially the descriptions of Mt Kinabalu which I have climbed myself and Wallace's experiences climbing similar mountains in Java. I'm left with a profound admiration for Wallace; for his energy, his drive, his inventiveness and his sense of adventure. Thanks Penny.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book on Wallace, whom I should say is the Ultimate Amateur Naturalist is a mix between descriptive natural history and a primer on the man's contribution to evolutionary theory and biogeography. The author sums up well the important precursors that led to Wallace piecing it all together during his sojourn in what is Indonesia today. For instance, plate tectonics, the beginning inklings of such a cause being crucial to solving the puzzle of faunal distribution in the Sundas.

An assortment of chapters detail either a geographical location, like Sulawesi and its unique biology, or a group of animals, like butterflies or birds of paradise. For anyone with an interest in this part of the world, and natural history in general, this book covers a diverse range of topics that would satisfy. I should say though, that not every chapter would be absorbing to any single reader. The detailed treatment of the movement of islands as they drifted into place over millions of years, and the technicalities of butterfly wing pattern development are two examples I found too esoteric even for a natural history buff like myself.

Though she is an ecologist, I found one or two inaccuracies in the text, like how clouded leopards are almost gone from Sumatra and Borneo when this is unlikely to be the case even more than twenty years after the book was published. Endangered and at risk yes, but almost gone, no. Like many books of that era, foretelling of doom by the 21st century - for e.g. forests will be ENTIRELY gone in another XX years, fortunately history has not proven the case. That is not to say we should congratulate ourselves or rest on our laurels of course, since SE Asia remains the epicentre of environmental destruction still. The fact that the author discovered the remote islands visited by Wallace have already been despoiled even when she visited in the late 1990s is telling indeed.

[Forrest Crock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed the romp through the life of Alfred Russell Wallace and the theory of biogeography. I was sad at two particular parts. I also enjoyed reading about the correspondence he had with Charles Darwin. A good book which goes to show the science of the time.

[Abi Ghifari · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a primary school student in Indonesia, we were taught of Wallacea line: an imaginary line that cross Makassar strait separating Borneo and Sulawesi, and Lombok strait separating lesser Sunda islands Bali and Lombok. We were taught, based on Alfred Russel Wallace's observation, that the western part of the line has Orientalist fauna, that is more similar to mainland Asian fauna; while the eastern part has Australian fauna. This division was later explained by biogeographical studies revealing that the seas connecting Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, and the seas connecting Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and New Guinea are indeed shallow and were not exist during the Ice Age. These shelves, now called Sunda and Sahul shelf, allowed land animals to cross to Indonesian islands from the mainland Asia and Australia, respectively.

Such observations can still be seen in nowadays Indonesia. While Sumatran and Bornean forests house large mammals like elephants, tigers, rhinos, and orangutans, Papuan forests are home for smaller marsupials, colourful cockatoos, and the giant cassowary.

Van Oosterzee took us to Wallace's journey in Indonesia, as he collected samples and wrote observation in his notebook. I love that the author didn't re-explain what observations that Wallace made, but rather reimagined and retold the story as an engaging prose. This book also reignites the important contribution of Wallace, which can be compared to Darwin's expedition to Galapagos, as he also came up with a similar idea of evolution by natural selection independently from Darwin.

[Bill Leach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of Alfred Wallace's travels and his identification of the line between Bali and Lombok / Borneo and Sulawesi as the division between the Asian and Australian ecosystems.