Mammal named for David Attenborough spotted for first time in 6 decades
An international team of researchers found an Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna in Indonesia, the first time in 60 years the animal was seen.
Britain’s University of Oxford announced the find on Friday. Echidnas are egg-laying mammals that diverged from other mammals 200 million years ago.
Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, named for British naturalist and documentarian David Attenborough, was discovered in 1961.
“Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna has the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater and the feet of a mole,” Oxford biologist James Kempton explained in the university’s release.
Using cameras placed in the Cyclops Mountains in Indonesia’s West Papua province, the researchers captured it on video for the first time, proving it had not gone extinct. The team had to use 80 trail cameras to find the nocturnal, burrowing creature.
The echidna was not the only creature the team found in the West Papuan rainforest. A species of honeyeater bird was rediscovered, and a new species of land-dwelling shrimp was identified.
“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. 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,” Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou, a fellow at Oxford’s Museum of Natural History, said in the release.
