Article ID: CBB001421081

Wallace's Travels and Theories in the Malay Archipelago (2014)

unapi

As a relatively young man, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823--1913) undertook two tropical journeys that were to transform his life and the emerging science of evolutionary biology: A four year exploration of the Amazon basin of South America (1848--1852) and an eight year exploration of the Malay Archipelago (1854--1862) including the islands of Java, Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea, and Bali. Wallace later generalized his findings from Southeast Asia to elaborate a global paradigm for identifying the earth's fundamental biogeographical regions in his magisterial Geographical Distribution of Animals ( 1876). It was, of course, Wallace's elucidation of the mechanism of evolution that constitutes his greatest scientific legacy from his Malay travels. In February 1858 while in the Moluccas, Wallace wrote out a draft of his theory in the now classic essay `On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type' ( 1858b), and mailed it to Charles Darwin in England. A copy of Wallace's essay, along with extracts from an unpublished manuscript on natural selection written by Darwin in 1844, were presented together at the historic meeting of the Linnean Society (London) on 1 July 1858. This meeting---a year prior to the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species ( 1859)---ensured that both Wallace and Darwin received recognition and joint priority for their momentous achievement. Upon his return to England in 1862, Wallace spent the remainder of his long life elucidating the implications of evolutionary theory for a vast array of subjects ranging from biogeography, sexual selection, the phenomenon of organic mimicry, taxonomy, physical geography and geology, anthropology, and the understanding of human culture.

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Authors & Contributors
van Wyhe, John
Fichman, Martin
Medina Precioso, Juan Ramón
John Hemming
Limeira-DaSilva, Victor Rafael
Vetter, Jeremy
Concepts
Evolution
Biology
Travel; exploration
Natural selection
Biogeography
Biographies
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
Places
Great Britain
Amazon River Region (South America)
South America
Malay; Malaysia
England
Argentina
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