A unique egg-laying mammal named after Sir David Attenborough and thought to be extinct has been photographed in a tropical forest in Indonesia for the first time ever.
The Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, last seen by scientists in 1961, was captured for the first time in photos and video footage using camera traps set up in the Cyclops Mountains of Indonesia’s Papua Province.
It belongs to a distinct group of egg-laying mammals called monotremes that includes the platypus and is special to science as it is one of only five remaining species of such animals.
Echidnas are known to be difficult to find as they are nocturnal, live in burrows, and also tend to be very shy.
An international team of researchers, collaborating with local communities, deployed over 80 camera traps to film the never-before-recorded iconic animal.
For nearly the entire four weeks researchers spent in the forest, their cameras recorded no sign of the iconic egg-laying mammal.
But, thankfully, on the last day with the last images on the final memory card, they obtained their shots of the elusive animal – marking the first ever images taken of Attenborough’s echidna.
Mammalogist Kristofer Helgen from the Australian Museum Research Institute then confirmed the identification of the species thought lost.
“Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna has the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater, and the feet of a mole. Because of its hybrid appearance, it shares its name with a creature of Greek mythology that is half human, half serpent,” biologist James Kempton from the University of Oxford, who led the expedition, said in a statement.
“The reason it appears so unlike other mammals is because it is a member of the monotremes – an egg-laying group that separated from the rest of the mammal tree-of-life about 200 million years ago,” Dr Kempton said.
A new species of terrestial shrimp, found in the soil and in the trees of the Cyclops Mountains. This shrimp belongs to a lineage that is normally found on the seashore, and it was an enormous surpise to the expedition team when it was discovered living hundreds of meters high up on th slopes of the mountains
(Expedition Cyclops)
The team also discovered a range of remarkable new species including, beetles, spiders, scorpion, a whole new genus of tree-dwelling shrimp, as well as Mayr’s honeyeater – a bird lost to science since 2008.
“We were quite shocked to discover this shrimp in the heart of the forest, because it is a remarkable departure from the typical seaside habitat for these animals,” entomologist Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou said.
“We believe that the high level of rainfall in the Cyclops Mountains means the humidity is great enough for these creatures to live entirely on land,” Dr Davranoglou added.
Researchers also found a previously unknown cave system, despite the life-threatening conditions posed by extremely inhospitable terrain, venomous animals, blood-sucking leeches, malaria, earthquakes, and exhausting heat in the region.
A temporary expedition campsite on the northern slopes of the Cyclops Mountains
(Expedition Cyclops)
During the course of the project, Dr Davranoglou broke his arm in two places, a team member contracted malaria, and another had a leech attached to his eye for a day and a half before it was finally removed, scientists say.
“Though some might describe the Cyclops as a ‘Green Hell’, I think the landscape is magical, at once enchanting and dangerous, like something out of a Tolkien book” Dr Kempton said.
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