<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/05/marsupials-discovered-new-guinea>
"Researchers led by the Australian scientist Tim Flannery have made a
once-in-a-lifetime discovery: that two charismatic marsupial species that had
been thought extinct for 6,000 years are alive in rainforest in remote West
Papua.
The pair are rare examples of “Lazarus taxa” – species that disappeared from
fossil records in the distant past that are later found to have survived.
One of the species is a striped possum with an extraordinarily elongated fourth
digit, twice as long as the rest of its fingers, that it uses to extract and
feed on wood-boring insect larvae. Fossil records had previously indicated the
species, known as the pygmy long-fingered possum (
Dactylonax kambuayai),
lived in Australia’s central Queensland region about 300,000 years ago but
seemed to have vanished during the ice age. Before the recent discovery, it was
last known to have lived in West Papua until about 6,000 years ago.
The other is a ring-tailed glider (
Tous ayamaruensis), which is closely
related to the Australian greater glider but with unfurred ears and a strongly
prehensile tail used for gripping. It was first described by the late
Australian zoologist Ken Aplin, who pieced together fossil fragments found in
West Papua late last century. Flannery’s research team found the species was
still living in the rainforest and identified it as part of a newly described
taxonomic group, or genus, of marsupials. Other species from the genus lived in
eastern Australia and New Guinea hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Flannery is best known as a climate campaigner and the author of the
international bestselling
The Weather Makers but he made his name in science
as a mammalogist and palaeontologist working in New Guinea and Pacific islands.
He says the likelihood of finding one mammal species that had been thought gone
for millennia was “almost zero”.
The chances of finding two? “It’s unprecedented and groundbreaking, really, to
find two Lazarus taxa,” Flannery says.
The 70-year-old says the identification of a new genus, in particular, felt
like a “lifetime achievement, shared with all our many other co-authors”. It is
the first new genus of New Guinean marsupial described since 1937."
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*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
