Island Life; Or, The Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and FlorasWallace, Alfred Russel
Science
Island Life; Or, The Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and Floras
Wallace, Alfred Russel
Biogeography; Glacial epoch; Island ecology
Among mammalia the most remarkable of these divided families is that of the
camels, of which one genus Camelus, the true camels, comprising the camel
and dromedary, is confined to Asia, while the other Auchenia, comprising
the llamas and alpacas, is found only in the high Andes and in the plains
of temperate South America. Not only are these two genera separated by the
Atlantic and by the greater part of the land of two continents, but one is
confined to the Northern and the other to the Southern hemisphere. The next
case, though not so well known, is equally remarkable; it is that of the
Centetidae, a family of small insectivorous animals, which are wholly
confined to Madagascar and the large West Indian islands Cuba and Hayti,
the former containing five genera and the latter a single genus with a
species in each island. Here again we have the whole continent of Africa as
well as the Atlantic ocean separating allied genera. Two families (or
subfamilies) of rat-like animals, Octodontidae and Echimyidae, are also
divided by the Atlantic. Both are mainly South American, but the former has
two genera in North and East Africa, and the latter also two in South and
West Africa. Two other families of mammalia, though confined to the Eastern
hemisphere, are yet markedly discontinuous. The Tragulidae are small
deer-like animals, known as chevrotains or mouse-deer, abundant in India
and the larger Malay islands and forming the genus Tragulus; while another
genus, Hyomoschus, is confined to West Africa. The other family is the
Simiidae or anthropoid apes, in which we have the gorilla and chimpanzee
confined to West and Central Africa, while the allied orangs are found only
in the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, the two groups being separated by a
greater space than the Echimyidae and other rodents of Africa and South
America.
Among birds and reptiles we have several families, which, from being found
only within the tropics of Asia, Africa, and America, have been termed
tropicopolitan groups. The Megalaemidae or barbets are gaily coloured {28}
fruit-eating birds, almost equally abundant in tropical Asia and Africa,
but less plentiful in America, where they probably suffer from the
competition of the larger sized toucans. The genera of each country are
distinct, but all are closely allied, the family being a very natural one.
The trogons form a family of very gorgeously coloured and remarkable
insect-eating birds very abundant in tropical America, less so in Asia, and
with a single genus of two species in Africa.
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