Around 400, St Augustine considered the distribution of the animals after Noah's flood, and suggested that either men or angels must have transported them.
Science cannot sustain the view that there ever was a flood like Noah's, and so does not consider this distribution puzzle as a real problem.
In 1860, Alfred Russel Wallace described the boundary between the Australian and Oriental faunal regions, now usually called the Wallace line or Wallace's line.
The Wallace's line follows a deep-water channel which runs between Kalimantan and Sulawesi, and between Bali and Lombok, dividing Indonesia into two zones.
In 1859, Asa Gray suggested the north American and Eurasian floras had once been homogeneous, then separated by Pleistocene glaciation and by later evolution.
Lydekker's line and Wallace's line are examples of biogeographic boundaries that mark the limits of ancient zones of evolution and the spread of various taxa.
Evidence for evolution is found in biogeography, where related types of land animals such as Old and New World monkeys are found on related land masses.
Biogeography also reveals lots of useful information about the way the planet's tectonic plates have moved around in the past, carrying life forms with them.