The Endemic bird Numbers in Javan Province

The Javan Province is the most extreme province of the Sundaic subregion. it is the most isolated of the remaining Sundaic land masses and also the furthest from the Asian mainland; it is also smaller than the other provinces. As a result it is slightly less rich in species than Borneo and Sumatra but more distinct with some 24 endemic species confined to it and over 170 endemic sub-species recognized. Bali and the most eastern parts of Java have also been colonised by some Lesser Sundas species which have arrived nearby Lombok, the nearest island of the Wallacean sub-region.

Similarly The Avifauna Geographical

The consequences of this geological history are that the bird faunas of the Australo-Papuan islands share many common features and are mostly Australian in origin. Similarly the bird faunas of the Sundaic are Asian (oriental) in origin. The Wallacean islands have a hotchpotch of species derived ffrom both the oriental an Australian zoogeographical region but with many endemic forms which have evolved on the different ilands as a result of their long isolation.

The Sundaic islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Java together with the Malay Peninsula share about onto the Asian mainland nor cross to adjacent Wallacea and this gives the sundaic area sufficient zoogeographical distinction to be classed as a separate faunal sub-region.

The Avifauna of Java and Bali

The Javan faunal province lies in one of the world's most interesting zoogeographical areas, the malay-Indonesia archipelago, an arc of some 17,000 islands straddling the equator and extending for five thousand kilometers between mainland Asia and the continent of Australia.

The archipelago can be divided into three distinct faunal sub-regions: the Australo-Papuan subregion which consists of all those islands which lie on the Sahul or Australian continental plate such as Aru, New Guinea and New Brittain: the sundaic sub-region which includes all those islands which lie on the Sunda or Asiatic continental shelf such as Borneo, Sumatra and Java plus the Malay Peninsula-which although not an island is faunistically more similar to the othe Sundaic areas than to the rest of the Asian mainland; and finally the Wallacean sub-region which consists of all the islands that lie between the two continental shelves such as Sulawesi, the Moluccas and the Lesser Sunda Islands. During the ice ages of the Pleistocene era between 3 million and 8,000 years ago the sea levels were lowered by as much as a hundred meters and all the islands on the Sunda shelf were linked by hand both to each other and to the mainland of Asia. Similarly the islands on the Sahul shelf wre linked to Australia. The islands of Wallcea, however were not linked to either continent, even at the times of lowest sealevel.