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Malesia
 
 
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Malesia is a biogeographical
Biogeography

Biogeography is the study of the distribution of biodiversity over space and time. It aims to reveal where organisms live, and at what abundance....
 region straddling the boundary of the Indomalaya
Indomalaya

The Indomalaya ecozone is one of the eight ecozones that cover the planet's land surface. It extends across most of South Asia and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia....
 and Australasia ecozone
Australasia ecozone

The Australasian zone is an ecozone that is coincident, but not synonymous , with the geography region of Australasia. The ecozone includes Australia, the island of New Guinea , and the eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, including the island of Sulawesi, the Moluccan islands and islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and Timo...
s. Malesia was first identified as a floristic province
Floristic province

A Phytochorion, in phytogeography, is a geographic area with a relatively uniform composition of plant species. Adjacent phtyochoria do not usually have a sharp boundary, but rather a soft one, a transitional area in which many species from both regions overlap....
 that included the Malay Peninsula
Malay Peninsula

The Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a major peninsula located in Southeast Asia. It is also known as the Kra Peninsula and runs approximately north-south through the Kra Isthmus....
, Indonesia
Indonesia

The Republic of Indonesia , is a transcontinental country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Comprising Islands of Indonesia, it is the world's largest Archipelago state....
, the Philippines
Philippines

The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
 and New Guinea
New Guinea

New Guinea, located just north of Australia, is the List of islands by area, having become separated from the Australian mainland when the area now known as the Torres Strait flooded after the last glacial period....
, based on a shared tropical flora derived mostly from Asia
Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
 but also with numerous elements of the Antarctic flora
Antarctic flora

The Antarctic flora is a distinct community of vascular plants which evolved millions of years ago on the supercontinent of Gondwana, and is now found on several separate areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including southern South America, southernmost Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania, and New Caledonia....
, including many species in the southern conifer families Podocarpaceae
Podocarpaceae

Podocarpaceae is a large family of mainly Southern Hemisphere conifers, with 18-19 genera and about 170-200 species of evergreen trees and shrubs....
 and Araucariaceae
Araucariaceae

The Araucariaceae are a very ancient family of conifers. They achieved maximum diversity in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, when they existed almost worldwide....
. The floristic province overlaps four distinct mammal
Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
ian faunal regions.

The western part of Malesia, which includes the Malay Peninsula and the islands of Sumatra
Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the list of islands by area in the world ....
, Java, Bali
Bali

Bali is an Indonesian island located at , the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. It is one of the country's 33 Provinces of Indonesia with the provincial capital at Denpasar towards the south of the island....
, and Borneo
Borneo

Borneo is the List of islands by area and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei....
, shares the large mammal fauna of Asia and is known as Sundaland
Sundaland

Sundaland is a biogeography region of Southeast Asia that comprises the Maritime Southeast Asia islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and surrounding smaller islands....
.






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Encyclopedia


Malesia is a biogeographical
Biogeography

Biogeography is the study of the distribution of biodiversity over space and time. It aims to reveal where organisms live, and at what abundance....
 region straddling the boundary of the Indomalaya
Indomalaya

The Indomalaya ecozone is one of the eight ecozones that cover the planet's land surface. It extends across most of South Asia and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia....
 and Australasia ecozone
Australasia ecozone

The Australasian zone is an ecozone that is coincident, but not synonymous , with the geography region of Australasia. The ecozone includes Australia, the island of New Guinea , and the eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, including the island of Sulawesi, the Moluccan islands and islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and Timo...
s. Malesia was first identified as a floristic province
Floristic province

A Phytochorion, in phytogeography, is a geographic area with a relatively uniform composition of plant species. Adjacent phtyochoria do not usually have a sharp boundary, but rather a soft one, a transitional area in which many species from both regions overlap....
 that included the Malay Peninsula
Malay Peninsula

The Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a major peninsula located in Southeast Asia. It is also known as the Kra Peninsula and runs approximately north-south through the Kra Isthmus....
, Indonesia
Indonesia

The Republic of Indonesia , is a transcontinental country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Comprising Islands of Indonesia, it is the world's largest Archipelago state....
, the Philippines
Philippines

The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
 and New Guinea
New Guinea

New Guinea, located just north of Australia, is the List of islands by area, having become separated from the Australian mainland when the area now known as the Torres Strait flooded after the last glacial period....
, based on a shared tropical flora derived mostly from Asia
Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
 but also with numerous elements of the Antarctic flora
Antarctic flora

The Antarctic flora is a distinct community of vascular plants which evolved millions of years ago on the supercontinent of Gondwana, and is now found on several separate areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including southern South America, southernmost Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania, and New Caledonia....
, including many species in the southern conifer families Podocarpaceae
Podocarpaceae

Podocarpaceae is a large family of mainly Southern Hemisphere conifers, with 18-19 genera and about 170-200 species of evergreen trees and shrubs....
 and Araucariaceae
Araucariaceae

The Araucariaceae are a very ancient family of conifers. They achieved maximum diversity in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, when they existed almost worldwide....
. The floristic province overlaps four distinct mammal
Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
ian faunal regions.

The western part of Malesia, which includes the Malay Peninsula and the islands of Sumatra
Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the list of islands by area in the world ....
, Java, Bali
Bali

Bali is an Indonesian island located at , the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. It is one of the country's 33 Provinces of Indonesia with the provincial capital at Denpasar towards the south of the island....
, and Borneo
Borneo

Borneo is the List of islands by area and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei....
, shares the large mammal fauna of Asia and is known as Sundaland
Sundaland

Sundaland is a biogeography region of Southeast Asia that comprises the Maritime Southeast Asia islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and surrounding smaller islands....
. These islands are on Asia's relatively shallow continental shelf
Continental shelf

The continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain, and was part of the continent during the glacial periods, but is undersea during Ice age such as the current epoch by relatively shallow seas and Bay....
, and were linked to Asia during the ice age
Ice age

The general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers....
s, when sea levels were lower. The eastern edge of Sundaland is the Wallace line
Wallace Line

The Wallace Line is a boundary that separates the Ecozone of Asia and Wallacea . West of the line are found organisms related to Asiatic species; to the east, a mixture of species of Asian and Australian origin are present....
, named after Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace, Order of Merit, Fellow of the Royal Society was a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Natural history, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist....
, the nineteenth-century British naturalist who noted the difference in fauna between islands on either side of the line.

The eastern end of Malesia, which includes New Guinea and the Aru Islands
Aru Islands

The Aru Islands are a group of about ninety-five low-lying islands in the Maluku Provinces of Indonesia of eastern Indonesia.Geography...
 of eastern Indonesia, is linked to Australia by a shallow continental shelf, and shares many marsupial
Marsupial

Marsupials are an infraclass of mammals, characterized by a distinctive Pouch , in which females carry their young through early infancy....
 mammal and bird taxa
Taxon

A taxon or taxonomic unit is a name designating an organism or a group of organisms. In biological nomenclature according to Carl Linnaeus, a taxon is assigned a taxonomic rank and can be placed at a particular level in a systematic hierarchy reflecting evolutionary relationships....
 with Australia. New Guinea also has many additional elements of the Antarctic flora, including southern beech (Nothofagus
Nothofagus

Nothofagus, also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of about 35 species of trees and shrub native to the temperate oceanic to tropical Southern Hemisphere in southern South America and Australasia ....
) and gums (Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of Flowering plant trees in the Myrtus family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia....
).

The islands between Sundaland and New Guinea, called Wallacea
Wallacea

Wallacea is a biogeography designation for a group of Indonesian islands separated by deep water straits from the Asian and Australia continental shelf....
, were never linked to the neighboring continents, and have a flora and fauna that include Indomalayan and Australasian elements. The Philippines were also never connected to Asia, and have a largely Asian-derived flora with some Australasian elements, and a distinct mammalian fauna.

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