The Equivalent of Today Going to Mars

Have you heard of  Alfred Russell Wallace?

Many  of us are familiar have with Charles Darwin and the theory about natural selection. When this theory was presented equal credit was given to Wallace and Darwin but some people do not live on in history books. A stunning paper-puppet animated video by Flora Lichtman and Sharon Shattuck describes Wallace’s contributions to the theory of natural selection.

Wallace was born in Usk  in Wales but he travelled to Brazil and Southeast Asia to explore the natural world. Severe buts of malaria and money problems throughout his lives did not stop him to collect material to support his ideas and to satisfy his unquenchable  thirst for knowledge and understanding.

How far are you prepared to go to satisfy your thirst for understanding?

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A beautiful image from the book The Geographical Distribution of Animals (Plate XIII in volume 1), where Wallace is celebrating the ornithology of New Zealand.

“No country on the globe can offer such an extraordinary set of birds as are here depicted.”

The kiwi is described  as “one of the queerest and most unbird-like of living birds.” There is also a kakapo, “a nocturnal burrowing parrot (to the left)  a pair of the now-extinct Takahe, and a pair of wrybill “remarkable for being the only birds known to have a bill bent sideways.”

 

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