But international borders aside, there's also an invisible line that cuts through the region that defines the zoological differences between the two continents. It's called the Wallace Line, named for British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. The naturalist traveled to the Malay Archipelago in 1854 to collect biological specimens, and he spent the next eight years exploring the region — which is home to some 25,000 islands, including the nations of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea. Wallace visited many of the archipelago's islands during this time, and he noticed something unusual about how the types of animals differed. On many of the westernmost islands, the fauna was more akin to animals native to Asia. Toward the east, the species were more similar to those found in Australia.
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