The origin of southwest Sulawesi and other Indonesian terranes: a biological view

A generalised track linking geographically dispersed areas in Indonesia with Burma is identified from moth and bird distributional data. These areas include Sulawesi, the Philippines, Sabah (northern Borneo), Java, Sumatra, Mentawai, the Nicobars, and Andamman Islands. A cladistic analysis of Sulawesian Dacus (Diptera: Tehritidae) shows that Sabah and Sulawesi are sister areas and together form a sister area to Sulawesi + Java + Sumatra + Thailand. Cladograms for other taxa are reviewed and these also lend support to the hypothesis that these now diverse Indonesian fragments share a closer biotic relationship to each other than they do to other areas. The geological history of the region is discussed and evidence that these Indonesian fragments are terranes which became sutured to the continental margin of Sundaland in the late Cretaceous or early Tertiary is discussed. The congruence between distributional patterns and tectonic history requires further investigation, but a working hypothesis suggests that these Indonesian terranes are linked to Mount Victoria Land, and that all were derived from a Gondwanic source area close to India.