The endemic animals of Sulawesi such as the crested black macaque, the bizarre
babirusa and the cow-like anoa are more related to Africa than Asia or Australia.
The babirusa is an odd animal since the tusks of its upper jaw instead of growing
downwards in the usual way, are completely reversed, growing upward and out of
bony sockets through the skin on each side of the snout, curving backwards to near the
eyes and in the mature animals often reaching eight or ten inches in length. Another
animal unique to Sulawesi and perhaps the strangest is the spectral tarsier, since it is
one of the world’s smallest primates being only ten centimetres long. Because they
are nocturnal they have enormous eyes compared to their body size and unusually for
a primate they feed only on insects. This was the first of four visits Wallace made to
this peculiar terrain and Sulawesi continued to puzzle him:
Celebes must be one of the oldest parts of the Archipelago. It probably dates from a period
not only anterior to that when Borneo, Java and Sumatra were separated from the continent,
but from that still more remote epoch when the land that now constitutes these islands had
not risen above the ocean.
Such an antiquity is necessary, to
account for the number of animal forms it
possesses, which show no relation to those
of India or Australia, but rather with those
of Africa; and we are led to speculate on the
possibility of there having once existed a
continent in the Indian Ocean which might
serve as a bridge to connect these distant
countries.Macassan traders made annual voyages
to the Aru Islands in the eastern extremity
of the Indonesian archipelago to collect
pearl shell, trepang or dried sea slug, and
most importantly bird of paradise skins.
For collectors, a bird of paradise specimen
was worth more than any other bird on
the planet and their skins were traded
across the world from Macassar. It was
a thousand mile voyage in a native boat,
the Bugis prahu, a boat which had made
the Macassan traders famous on their
annual voyages to the eastern islands and
as far south as Arnhem Land in Australia
to collect trepang for the Chinese markets.
A spectral tarsier144 Where Australia Collides with Asia
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