PANDUANHEWAN · INDONESIA
Worksheet: Indonesia’s fauna zones (Asian, Wallacean, Australian)
A printable worksheet on the Wallace and Weber lines and examples of Asian, Wallacean and Australian fauna, with an answer key for teachers.
This student worksheet is ready to print: use your browser’s print command (Ctrl+P or ⌘P). The teacher’s answer key is on the last page and starts on a new sheet when printed. Every answer comes from PanduanHewan’s sourced data.
Learning goals
- Explain the Wallace and Weber lines.
- Sort example animals into Asian, Wallacean or Australian fauna.
Short reading
Indonesia's three faunal zones
In Indonesian geography lessons, land animals are grouped into three zones: Asian-type (Asiatis) fauna in the west, transitional (peralihan) fauna in the middle and Australian-type (Australis) fauna in the east. The split follows the country's geology: the Sunda shelf in the west, a transition area in the middle and the Sahul shelf in the east.
The boundaries are drawn as imaginary lines: Wallace's line, Weber's line and Lydekker's line. Alfred Russel Wallace published the first line in 1863, based on where land mammals and land birds live. Scientists soon realised that every such line is leaky to some degree, which led to the idea of a transition zone, now called Wallacea.
Wallace's line: from the Lombok Strait to the Makassar Strait
Wallace's line marks the boundary between the Oriental (Asian) and Australian faunal regions. From the Indian Ocean it runs through the Lombok Strait between Bali and Lombok, north through the Makassar Strait between Borneo and Sulawesi, then east, south of Mindanao, into the Philippine Sea. The Indonesian education ministry's geography module describes its northern part as crossing the Celebes Sea through the gap between Mindanao and the Sangihe Islands.
Wallace saw a sharp change across the Lombok Strait. He wrote that Bali has barbets, fruit-thrushes and woodpeckers, but on Lombok these disappear and cockatoos, honeyeaters and brush-turkeys (megapodes) take their place.
Activity 1
Write each animal’s fauna zone: Asian, Wallacean or Australian.
| No | Animal | Fauna zone | Reason or note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sumatran elephant Elephas maximus sumatranus | ||
| 2 | Sumatran tiger Panthera tigris sondaica | ||
| 3 | Javan rhinoceros Rhinoceros sondaicus | ||
| 4 | Malayan tapir Tapirus indicus | ||
| 5 | Bornean orangutan Pongo pygmaeus | ||
| 6 | Siamang Symphalangus syndactylus | ||
| 7 | Komodo dragon Varanus komodoensis | ||
| 8 | Lowland anoa Bubalus depressicornis | ||
| 9 | Sulawesi babirusa Babyrousa celebensis | ||
| 10 | Maleo Macrocephalon maleo | ||
| 11 | Sulawesi bear cuscus Ailurops ursinus | ||
| 12 | Crested black macaque Macaca nigra |
Activity 2
- How is Indonesia's fauna distributed according to Wallace's line and Weber's line?
- What are examples of Asian-type (Asiatis) fauna?
- What is transitional (peralihan) fauna?
Reflection
What new thing did you learn today?
Answer key (for teachers)
- Sumatran elephant: Asian fauna — The Asian elephant is a large mammal of mainland Asia with its own subspecies on Sumatra, and Wallace (1863) named the Sumatran elephant as an example of the large mammals of the Indo-Malayan region.
- Sumatran tiger: Asian fauna — The tiger ranges from the Russian Far East to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, so the Sumatran tiger is an Asian big cat at the southern edge of that range.
- Javan rhinoceros: Asian fauna — Wallace (1863) named the rhinoceros of Sumatra and its relative on Java as examples of the large mammals of the Indo-Malayan region.
- Malayan tapir: Asian fauna — The Malayan tapir is the only tapir in Southeast Asia, and Wallace (1863) listed the tapir of Sumatra as an example of Asian fauna.
- Bornean orangutan: Asian fauna — Orangutans are Asian great apes found only in Sumatra and Borneo, both west of Wallace's line.
- Siamang: Asian fauna — The siamang belongs to the gibbon family (Hylobatidae), a family endemic to the Oriental region, and lives in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula.
- Komodo dragon: Wallacean (transitional) fauna — The Komodo dragon lives only on Komodo and a few neighbouring Lesser Sunda islands, and is cited as one of Wallacea's iconic animals.
- Lowland anoa: Wallacean (transitional) fauna — The anoa is a dwarf buffalo endemic to Sulawesi, related to native bovids of the Philippines and East Asia: an Asian lineage that became a Wallacean speciality.
- Sulawesi babirusa: Wallacean (transitional) fauna — Babirusas live on Sulawesi and nearby islands and are cited as one of Wallacea's iconic oddities.
- Maleo: Wallacean (transitional) fauna — The maleo is found only on Sulawesi and is cited as an iconic animal of the Wallacea centre of endemism.
- Sulawesi bear cuscus: Wallacean (transitional) fauna — The bear cuscus is a marsupial found only on Sulawesi and the Talaud Islands: an Australasian element living alongside animals of Asian origin.
- Crested black macaque: Wallacean (transitional) fauna — The crested black macaque is one of seven Macaca species on Sulawesi; almost all members of the genus are Asian, so it shows the Asian element in the transition zone.
- How is Indonesia's fauna distributed according to Wallace's line and Weber's line? Wallace's line (from the Lombok Strait to the Makassar Strait) separates the Asian-type fauna of Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan and Bali from the transitional fauna to the east. Weber's line, west of Maluku, is a line of balance: to its west Asian-type animals are the majority, to its east Australian-type animals are. The area between Wallace's line and Lydekker's line is Wallacea (Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara, Maluku), while Papua and the Aru Islands have Australian-type fauna.
- What are examples of Asian-type (Asiatis) fauna? Examples are the Sumatran elephant, Sumatran tiger, Javan rhinoceros, Malayan tapir, orangutans, the siamang and the banteng. They live in Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan or Bali, west of Wallace's line, and are related to animals of mainland Asia.
- What is transitional (peralihan) fauna? Transitional fauna is the fauna of Wallacea (Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara and Maluku), the area between Wallace's line and Lydekker's line. It mixes Asian and Australian groups and has many endemic species, such as anoas, babirusas, the maleo, the bear cuscus and the Komodo dragon.
Data sources: Britannica: Wallace Line (archived snapshot, 5 Jan 2026) ↗ · Britannica (C. P. Groves): Biogeographic region - Oriental region, Wallacea, Notogaean and Australian regions (archived snapshot, 7 Sep 2025) ↗ · Britannica: Lydekker's Line (archived snapshot, 15 Oct 2025) ↗ · Ali & Heaney (2021) Wallace's line, Wallacea, and associated divides and areas: history of a tortuous tangle of ideas and labels. Biological Reviews 96: 922-942 (abstract) ↗ · Doorenweerd et al. (2020) The Dacini fruit fly fauna of Sulawesi fits Lydekker's line but also supports Wallacea as a biogeographic region. ZooKeys ↗ · Struebig et al. (2022) Safeguarding imperiled biodiversity and evolutionary processes in the Wallacea center of endemism. BioScience 72(11): 1118-1130 ↗ · Frantz et al. (2018) Synchronous diversification of Sulawesi's iconic artiodactyls driven by recent geological events. Proc. R. Soc. B 285: 20172566 ↗ · Voris (2000) Maps of Pleistocene sea levels in Southeast Asia: shorelines, river systems and time durations. Journal of Biogeography 27: 1153-1167 (abstract) ↗ · Field Museum: Pleistocene sea level maps (H. K. Voris) ↗ · Wallace (1863) On the physical geography of the Malay Archipelago. J. Royal Geographical Society 33 (full text, Wallace Page, Western Kentucky University) ↗ · Wallace (1857) On the great bird of paradise, Paradisea apoda (full text, Wallace Page, Western Kentucky University) ↗ · Natural History Museum, London: Who was Alfred Russel Wallace? ↗