Attenborough's long-beaked echidna, named after British
naturalist David Attenborough, was photographed for the first
time by a trail camera on the last day of a four-week expedition
led by Oxford University scientists.
Having descended from the mountains at the end of the trip,
biologist James Kempton found the images of the small creature
walking through the forest undergrowth on the last memory card
retrieved from more than 80 remote cameras.
"There was a great sense of euphoria, and also relief having
spent so long in the field with no reward until the very final
day," he said, describing the moment he first saw the footage
with collaborators from Indonesian conservation group YAPPENDA.
"I shouted out to my colleagues that were still remaining... and
said 'we found it, we found it' - I ran in from my desk to the
living room and hugged the guys."
Echidnas share their name with a half-woman, half-serpent Greek
mythological creature, and were described by the team as shy,
nocturnal burrow-dwellers who are notoriously difficult to find.
"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," Kempton said.
The species has only been scientifically recorded once before,
by a Dutch botanist in 1961. A different echidna species is
found throughout Australia and lowland New Guinea.
Kempton's team survived an earthquake, malaria and even a leech
attached to an eyeball during their trip. They worked with the
local village Yongsu Sapari to navigate and explore the remote
terrain of northeastern Papua.
The echidna is embedded in the local culture, including a
tradition that states conflicts are resolved by sending one
party to a disagreement into the forest to search for the mammal
and another to the ocean to find a marlin, according to Yongsu
Sapari elders cited by the university.
Both creatures were seen as so difficult to find that it would
often take decades or a generation to locate them, but, once
found, the animals symbolized the end of the conflict and a
return to harmonious relationships.
(Reporting by William James; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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