faunal region: Quick Facts

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Facts

Also Known As	zoogeographic region

Photos

Map of the Indonesian archipelago showing major faunal boundaries with colored lines: Wallace's Line in blue, Huxley's modification in red, Weber's Line in purple, and Lydekker's Line in green. These lines mark biogeographic divisions between Asian and Australasian animal species across islands such as Borneo, Sulawesi, Halmahera, and New Guinea.

World map displaying faunal realms and major animal regions, with color-coded areas representing the Holarctic, Paleotropical (Afro-Tethyan), Neogaean (Neotropical), Notogaean (Australian), and Oceanic realms. Major boundaries and notable regions such as Afrotropical, Oriental, Madagascan, Wallacea, Australian, and Hawaiian are labeled, and arrows indicate the hypothesized distribution of Antarctic fauna.

World map showing major faunal regions as defined by mammalian distributions, with each region color-coded: Holarctic in green (including Nearctic and Palearctic), Afro-Tethyan in pink (including Mediterranean, Ethiopian, Oriental, and Madagascan), Latin American in tan (including Neotropical, Argentine, and West Indian), Island in yellow (including Australian and Madagascar). Major region boundaries are marked with bold lines.

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Topics

Megagaea Realm Notogaea Realm Paleotropical realm Oriental region Antarctic realm realm Lydekker’s Line Huxley’s Line Wallace Line Neotropical region Floristic region

Dig Deeper: More Articles That Discuss This Topic

biogeographic region: Fauna

Key People

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Karl P. Schmidt

American zoologist

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Loren Eiseley

American anthropologist