ABSTRACT
Tom Gilliard Birds of Paradise and Bower Birds was an important reference for New Guinea because of the detailed distributional maps it contained. New Guinean taxonomy was still focused on collecting and describing because much of the fauna and flora, particularly of the more isolated parts of the island, was poorly known and many species remained uncollected or undescribed. The Tosem block was probably accreted to the New Guinea margin during the Late Oligocene, and possibly at some distance east of its present position. Peninsula New Guinea and offshore islands of the Louisiade and D’Entrecasteux archipelagos are composed of a single composite terrane. The placement of the island arc fragments of northern New Guinea in a clade clearly makes sense in light of the areas’ geological connection, although the position of the Huon Peninsula is anomalous. The continental rocks are separated from island arc volcanics by the Ransiski fault zone.
