A bee the size of a human thumb was first described in Victorian times, but hadn’t been seen since 1981. That is, until four biologists teamed up on a trek to Indonesia’s North Molucca islands.
An illustration of life in Aru Islands from The Malay Archipelago
Wallace, Alfred Russel via Wikimedia Commons
An evolutionary biologist visits the remote jungle mountaintop where a little-known naturalist wrote his insightful paper about the mechanisms of evolution that spurred on a rivalrous Charles Darwin.
Birds don’t fly across wide Amazonian rivers like the Rio Negro.
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Rivers are natural boundaries for evolving populations. But scientists don’t agree whether they create new species or just help maintain them. Research using birds’ molecular clocks provides some answers.
A theory is not meant to be a final statement of how things are, but just the latest stage of ongoing research and new discoveries.
Sulawesi, part of the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is home to tarsiers – tiny, goggle-eyed creatures look more like mammalian tree frogs than monkeys.
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