2023-11-10 07:14:00
(Archyde.com) — Scientists have rediscovered a long-vanished species of mammal in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains, said to have the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater and the paws of a mole, more than 60 years following was last registered.
Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, named following British naturalist David Attenborough, was first photographed by a trail camera on the final day of a four-week expedition led by Oxford University scientists.
After descending from the mountains at the end of the trip, biologist James Kempton found images of the small creature walking through the forest undergrowth on the last memory card recovered from more than 80 remote cameras.
“There was a great feeling of euphoria, and also relief at having spent so much time in the field without getting any reward until the last day,” he says, describing the moment he first saw the images with his collaborators from the Indonesian conservation group YAPPENDA .
“I shouted to my colleagues who were still there… and said ‘we found him, we found him’. I ran from my desk to the living room and hugged the guys.”
Echidnas share their name with a half-woman, half-snake Greek mythological creature, and the team described them as shy nocturnal inhabitants of burrows that are notoriously difficult to find.
“The reason it looks so different from other mammals is that it belongs to the monotreme group, an egg-laying group that split off from the rest of the mammalian tree of life regarding 200 million years ago,” explains Kempton. .
The species has only been scientifically recorded once, by a Dutch botanist in 1961. There is another species of echidna in Australia and the lowlands of New Guinea.
During their journey, Kempton’s team survived an earthquake, malaria and even a leech stuck to an eyeball. They worked with the local Yongsu Sapari village to navigate and explore the remote terrain of northeastern Papua.
The echidna is ingrained in local culture, including a tradition whereby conflicts are resolved by sending one disputing party into the forest in search of the mammal and another into the ocean in search of a needlefish, according to Yongsu Sapari elders. cited by the university.
Both creatures were considered so difficult to find that it often took decades or a generation to locate them, but once found, the animals symbolized the end of conflict and a return to harmonious relationships.
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