To Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin, co-discoverers of natural selection, the geographical aspect of natural history gave away the fact of evolution. If species were created independently, why should a creator choose to put 50 species of lemur on Madagascar, but nowhere else? Why should the Galapagos host a set of finches so different from species on other oceanic islands, but strikingly similar both to each other and to birds on the nearest mainland? Why indeed did creation on islands involve flying species like birds and bats, but rarely frogs and land mammals?
