After passing more than a century without major alterations, a
map dividing the animals of the world into geographical zones has
been given a massive overhaul.
The map, originally created by Alfred Russel Wallace as part of
his 1876 book, The Geographical Distribution of Animals,
has been tweaked to take into account data on more than 20,000 species
of birds, mammals and amphibians, extending the number of zones
from six to eleven.
"Our study is a long overdue update of one of the most
fundamental maps in natural sciences," said co-lead author Ben Holt
of the University of Copenhagen's Centre for Macroecology,
Evolution and Climate. "For the first time since Wallace's attempt
we are finally able to provide a broad description of the natural
world based on incredibly detailed information for thousands of
The reworking took fifteen researchers from all around the world
and twenty years of data compilation to complete before being
published online in Science Express. It sorts animals into eleven broad
geographical zones which can be split amongst twenty smaller
zoogeographic regions as well as showing how the zones relate to
one another. Some have also been highlighted for their evolutionary
uniqueness -- the animals of Madagascar have even been awarded
their own specific zone.
The revised map also offers a new perspective and resource for
ecological research. According to co-lead author Jean-Philippe
Lessard, "we can now begin to define conservation priorities based
on millions of years of evolutionary history."