Researchers poring over Indonesia's 'Lost World'
Team that found new species of plants, animals says it has barely scratched surface
By ROBIN MCDOWELL
Associated Press
JAKARTA, INDONESIA - Soon after scientists landed by helicopter in the mist-shrouded mountains of one of Indonesia's most remote provinces, they stumbled on a primitive egg-laying mammal that simply allowed itself to be picked up and brought to their field camp.
Describing a "Lost World" — apparently never visited by humans — members of the team said last week that they also saw large mammals that have been hunted to near-extinction elsewhere and discovered dozens of exotic new species of frogs, butterflies and palms.
"We've only scratched the surface," said Bruce Beehler, a co-leader of the monthlong trip to the Foja Mountains, an area in the eastern province of Papua with roughly 2 million acres of pristine tropical forest.
"There was not a single trail, no sign of civilization, no sign of even local communities ever having been there," he told the Associated Press in a phone interview from Washington, D.C.
Two headmen from the Papasena and Kwerba tribes, the customary landowners of the mountain range, accompanied the expedition, and "they were as astounded as we were at how isolated it was," Beehler said. "As far as they knew, neither of their clans had ever been to the area."
Hit the ground discovering
The December expedition was organized by U.S.-based Conservation International and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and funded by the National Geographic Society and several other organizations.
Minutes after the small team of American, Indonesian and Australian scientists were dropped into a boggy lake bed and set up camp near the mountain range's western summit, they said they encountered a new species of bird — a red-faced and wattled honeyeater.
The next day, they saw Berlepsch's Six-wired Bird of Paradise, described by hunters in the 19th century and named for the wires that extend from its head in place of a crest.
They watched in amazement as a male bird performed a courtship dance for a female, shaking the long feathers on his head, and later took the first known photograph of the bird.
The scientists said they discovered 20 frog species — including a microhylid frog less than a half-inch long — four new butterfly species, and at least five new types of palms.
Among their most memorable experiences were their encounters with the Long-beaked Echidna, members of the primitive egg-laying group of mammals called the Monotremes, which twice allowed themselves to be picked up and brought to the camp for observation.
Beehler attributed the lack of fear displayed by the spine-covered Echidnas (pronounced eh-KID-na) to the fact that they probably had never come into contact with humans.
The findings will have to be published in scientific journals and reviewed by peers before being officially classified as new species. Environmentalists said the discoveries were hardly surprising in a country renowned for its rich biodiversity.
"There are many species that have not been identified" in Indonesia, said Chairul Saleh of the World Wildlife Fund, which has made hundreds of its own discoveries in the sprawling archipelago in the past 10 years.
02-12-2006 11:17 PM
