ILLUSTRATIONS BY PETER SCHOUTENNATURE
I
T’S NOT OFTEN you get a positive
lead suggesting a long-extinct
Australian mammal may be hiding
out in a remote spot, waiting for redis-
covery. Although some people hold out
hope that the thylacine is clinging on in
some little-explored spot of Tasmania,
experts agree this is unlikely.
A few species have been rediscov-
ered in other parts of Australia. The
scaly-tailed possum was found on an
AG Society expedition into the eastern
Kimberley in 2012, after it hadn’t
been seen in the area since 1917 (see
AG 110); while Gilbert’s potoroo was
thought lost from the mid-18th century
until a few animals were found at Two
Peoples Bay near Albany, WA, in 1994
(see AG 108). But these are animals
lost in recent history, since European
colonisation – not animals thought
to have gone extinct more than
10,000 years ago.
Excitingly, researchers on an
expedition into the remote western
Kimberley region are hoping to find
evidence of the western long-beaked
echidna (Zaglossus bruijnii). This is larger
relative of the more common short-
beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus),
which is found right across Australia.Scientists from the Australian Wildlife
Conservancy and the WA Department
of Environment and Conservation
announced their plans in June to search
for scats and analyse DNA within them
to see if the creature is present.
The western long-beaked echidna
is one of three species of echidna
that’s found only on the island of New
Guinea, north of Australia across the
Torres Strait. The species is pretty big,
weighing in at up to 17kg and reaching
lengths of 1m (about twice the length
of a common echidna). It is critically
endangered and found in relatively
small numbers largely in the rainforests
and high alpine meadows of the Bird’s
Head Peninsula of the West Papua
province of Indonesia, that forms part
of the western half of New Guinea.
The most recent Australian fossil
evidence for the species, which is the
world’s largest egg-laying mammal, is
about 10,000 years old, but Aboriginal
rock art thought to feature the mono-
treme dates to about 5000 years ago.
The search for evidence of the ani-
mal in the Kimberley was prompted
after Dr Kristofer Helgen, at the
Smithsonian Museum of Natural
History in Washington, DC, foundCould the world’s largest egg-laying mammal – thought
long-extinct in Australia – be hiding in a remote spot of the
western Kimberley? An expedition has gone to find out.a skin and skull at London’s Natural
History Museum, which were col-
lected in the western Kimberley
area in 1901. Found at Mount
Anderson, 90km south-east of Derby,
by naturalist John T. Tunney, the
specimens were overlooked because
curators thought it was a short-beaked
echidna. Although the confusion
about the species was later clarified,
the London-based experts didn’t
realise the significance of the region
the animal had been collected from.
Perhaps more intriguing were
reports collected by Kristofer and his
colleagues – and published in the jour-
nal ZooKeys in 2012 – that a woman of
the Miriwoong Gadjerong Aboriginal
people remembered her grandmothers
talking about hunting a much larger
echidna in their youths. These pieces
of evidence together suggested that the
larger echidna might still be hanging
on in the vast and largely undeveloped
wilderness that is north-western WA.
“We hold out a small optimism that
long-beaked echidnas might yet dig
burrows and hunt invertebrates in at
least one hidden corner of Australia’s
north-west. Such hopes are founded
on the remoteness of this little-studied
expanse of the Australian continent,
and on the relatively late discovery of
other medium-sized Kimberley mam-
mals,” the researchers said in 2012.
So now we await the findings of
the ongoing research expedition.
How exciting it would be to discover
a new mammal as large as the long-
beaked echidna in Australia – perhaps
uncovering a creature approaching the
size of the Tasmanian tiger isn’t
such a long shot after all.JOHN PICKRELL
is the editor of AUSTRALIAN
GEOGRAPHIC. Follow him
on Twitter at: twitter.com/
john_pickrellLost and found
Big brother. The western
long-beaked echidna (left),
currently only known from PNG,
is a giant version of Australia’s
short-beaked variety (below).S –O 2014 21a new mammal as large as the long-
beaked echidna in Australia – perhaps
uncovering a creature approaching the
size of the Tasmanian tiger isn’t
such a long shot after all.is the editor of A
GEOGRAPHIC
on Twitter at:
john_pickrellS –O 20ag0914p021_johnsnature - 21 2014-08-07T16:51:59+10:00