Australian discovery puts new spin on biological map

A BIOLOGICAL world map which has long been held by scientists is expected to be redrawn after the discovery of an “Australian” species on Christmas Island.

The island off Western Australian but just south of Indonesia has long been recognised as being on the South-east Asian side of a metaphorical line separating animal species – named the Wallace Line.

It has long been considered by scientists as the barrier between animals with origins in Australasia, and the rest of the world.

The line has existed since 1859 but is now considered out of date, according to the University of Queensland’s Professor Jonathan Aitchison. Prof Aitchison and his colleagues have found half of Christmas Island’s mammal and land reptile population have genetics indicating they are of Australasian origin.

Christmas Island is 1000km west of the boundary believed to be where Australasian species stopped.

“To the west (of the line) are the tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses and orang-utans of Eurasia and to the east, the marsupials and monotremes that are synonymous with Australia,” Prof Aitchison said in a statement.

Professor Shai Meiri, from the University of Tel Aviv, was also involved in the research. and speculated how these animals would’ve made it so far west of the Australian continent.

“The ancestors of these species would have most likely have been washed over on uprooted trees of vegetation mats and transported by an oceanic current known as the Indonesian Throughflow,” he said.