Wallace’s golden birdwing, Ornithoptera croesusThe forests of Bacan were soon to reveal another of their secrets and provide
Alfred Russel Wallace and his assistant Ali with what he considered to be his greatest
collecting achievement. After a day out collecting insects around some ground being
cleared for a new coal mine, Wallace was returning home when he met Ali:
Just as I got home I overtook Ali returning from shooting with some birds hanging from his
belt. He seemed much pleased, and said, ‘Look here sir, what a curious bird!’ holding out
what at first completely puzzled me. I saw a bird with a mass of splendid green feathers on
its breast, elongated into two glittering tufts; but what I could not understand was a pair of
long white feathers, which stuck straight out from each shoulder. Ali assured me that the
bird stuck them out this way itself when fluttering its wings, and that they had remained so
without his touching them. I now saw that I had got great prize, no less than a completely
new form of bird of paradise, differing most remarkably from every other known bird.When a specimen of the bird reached the British Museum it was named Semioptera
wallacii or Wallace’s standardwing in his honour and his name would forever be
associated with a new species of one of the most spectacular birds in the world. What
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