?Lost World? in New Guinea
I’m not sure how I feel about this news. Good for science on the one hand, potentially disastrous for this hidden New Guinean ecosystem on the other. As it’s already being widely referred to as ‘A New Eden’ perhaps it might do us good to remember what happened to the old one.
For the moment I shall just goggle in wonder at some of the discoveries:
The Long Beaked Echidna
Click on the image for a BBC slideshow of the New Guinean discoveries
The researchers secured the first photographs of the new exotic birds, such as a male Berlepsch’s Six-Wired Bird of Paradise (Parotia berlepschi).
The team also found a new mammal for Indonesia ? the Golden-Mantled Tree Kangaroo, previously thought only to be found from a single mountain in neighbouring Papua New Guinea.
The vice president of CI?s Melanesia Centre for Biodiversity Conservation and a co-leader of the tour, Bruce Beehler, said: ?It’s as close to the Garden of Eden as you’re going to find on Earth.
?The first bird we saw at our camp was a new species. Large mammals that have been hunted to near extinction elsewhere were here in abundance.
?We were able to simply pick up two Long-Beaked Echidnas, a primitive egg-laying mammal that is little known.?
[…]
Other discoveries include more than 20 new frogs, four new butterflies and what may be the largest rhododendron flower on record ? almost six inches wide.
More than 30,000 hectares of old growth rainforest remain untouched by humans.
Tags: Science Biology Environment Animals
