Its narrowest point is at its southern opening, with a width of only 18 km, but at the northern opening it is 40 km across. Total length is about 60 km.
The Lombok Strait is notable as one of the main passages for the Indonesian throughflow that exchanges water between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
It also marks the passage of the biogeographical division between the fauna of Indo-Malaysia and the distinctly different fauna of Australasia that is known as the Wallace Line, for Alfred Russel Wallace, who first remarked upon the distinction between these two major biomes here. When sea levels dropped during the Pleistoceneice age, Lombok was connected to Sumatra and the mainland of Asia and shared the Asian fauna, but the deep water of the Lombok Strait continued to keep Bali and the Lesser Sunda archipelago isolated.
It is part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the LombokStrait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east.
The LombokStrait marks the passage of the biogeographical division between the fauna of the Indomalayan ecozone and the distinctly different fauna of Australasia that is known as the Wallace Line, for Alfred Russel Wallace, who first remarked upon the distinction between these two major biomes.
The Dutch first visited Lombok in 1674 and settled the eastern part of the island, leaving the western half to be ruled by a Hindu dynasty from Bali.
LOMBOK (called by the natives Sasak), one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, in the Dutch East Indies, E. of Java, between 8° 12' and 9°' i' S. and 115° 46' and i A° 40' E., with an area of 3136 sq.
It is separated from Bali by the Strait of Lombok and from Sumbawa by the Strait of Alas.
To the naturalist Lombok is of particular interest as the frontier island of the Australian region, with its cockatoos and megapods or moundbuilders, its peculiar bee-eaters and ground thrushes.
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