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About the event

Alfred Russel Wallace was a self-taught British naturalist, a self-described “beetle collector” who travelled for four years in the Amazon and eight years in Southeast Asia. During his Asian sojourn in the mid-19th century he covered some 22,500 kilometres through Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

Wallace made his voyages without formal government support, without a floating base camp without infrastructure, without much cash.

During his epic journey Wallace caught, skinned and pickled 125,660 specimens of “natural productions” including 212 new species of birds, 900 new species of beetles and 200 new species of ants.  Consider just the logistics — how could one man, on a tight budget and without organizational support, living rough in rainforests, collect, identify, mount, preserve and transport 8,000 bird skins and 100,000 insects?

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