Wallace of Sarawak

Wallace arrived in Sarawak at the invitation of Rajah Sir James Brooke in 1854 and spent the 15 months exploring and collecting enormous specimens of flora and fauna.

The specimens included 2,000 beetle species, 1,500 moth species and 1,500 other insect orders along the Sarawak River valley from Santubong to Bau as well as the peat swamps of Simunjan.

The collections, which he sold to private collectors and institutions in the United Kingdom to finance his travels in the region, are now kept at the Natural History Museum in London and Tring.

From January to February 1955, Wallace also wrote his first major paper on evolution, which became known as “The Sarawak Law” in Santubong, followed by another major publication on the Orangutan in Simunjan the following year.

Recognising the danger that such specimens might be in great demand as collectors’ items, the Rajah Brooke Birdwing butterfly, for which Wallace was more widely known, had been declared a protected species under the Sarawak Wildlife Protection Ordinance.