When we think of evolution, we think of Charles Darwin. Yet on a tiny, volcanic, Indonesian island, a little-known naturalist formulated a theory that would shape the world of science.
The Indonesian island of Ternate, like its neighbour Tidore, is almost all volcano. It sprouts from the sea, an almost-perfect, yet truncated cone, wreathed in steamy clouds and fringed with a narrow strip of flatlands and beach that house an airport, a city and an around-the-island road. Travelling thousands of miles by steamer, sailing ships and native boats, on horseback and on foot, he and his assistants had killed, skinned or pinned tens of thousands of specimens, from orangutans to birds of paradise to the sloth-like marsupial known as the cuscus, not to mention thousands of species of beetle.
Enriched by this precious traffic, the sultans of Ternate laid claim to an empire that stretched as far as the Philippines and Papua β and engaged in vicious rivalry with the sultans of equally tiny Tidore. By , the island that had attracted the pirate-navigator Francis Drake and the explorer Ferdinand Magellan was a backwater. Wallace had barely moved in to his shady house with its cool, freshwater well when he fell sick, most likely with malaria. Cold sweats alternated with hot fits, and Wallace had to lie down for hours at a time, with nothing to do but think.
During his travels through what is today mostly Indonesia, Wallace had seen thousands of thought-provoking creatures. There was the flying frog, which demonstrated how toes already adapted for swimming and climbing could be used to soar through the air. There were orangutans, which perhaps had their own ancestors, like chimpanzees and gorillas; Wallace had tended a baby as a pet.
Sickness β and perhaps with it the prospect of his own extinction β concentrated his mind. Inspired, Wallace waited anxiously for his fever to pass, and quickly noted down the outline of a paper.
