The Mysterious Biodiversity in Alfred Wallace’s Collectio

KOMPAS/LUKI AULIA

A 3.6-meter python skin is displayed as part of the Linnean Society\'s collection. British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace contributed the python skin, which was added to the collection in 1958, from Ambon. Wallace trapped, killed and skinned the python when it crawled onto the roof of the house he was renting, an account that appears in Wallace’s seminal work, The Malay Archipelago.

In his eight years of exploring the Indonesian archipelago, renowned British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace and his assistants collected around 128,000 animal specimens, most of which were butterflies, insects and birds. Almost all of the preserved specimens in Wallace’s collection are stored in botanical gardens and museums in the United Kingdom and several other countries. They are waiting to be explored further.

Wallace’s private collection is now stored in museums and botanical gardens in the United Kingdom, including the Natural History Museum, the British Museum, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and the British Library. Wallace’s family donated the collection to these institutions after his death. Some were donated by private collectors who had purchased “duplicates” of Wallace’s collected specimens from his agent Samuel Stevens. The museums also routinely purchase “duplicates” of Wallace’s collected specimens, like what the Natural History Museum (NHM) did between 1857 and 1865.