It has spines like a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater, the feet of a mole and lays eggs: for the first time in more than 60 years, researchers in Indonesia have observed a mammal that was feared already extinct: a long-beaked Attenborough kind. echidna that fell into a camera trap…
The animal with the scientific name Zaglossus attenboroughi, named after the famous British wildlife filmmaker, naturalist and writer Sir David Attenborough, was photographed with a wildlife camera for the first time since 1961 in the Cyclops Mountains on the island of New Guinea during a four-week expedition of the film from the University of Oxford is banned.
Has been on the IUCN Red List since 2015
The lack of further finds after 1961 and the continued destruction of the shy animals’ habitat led to the population being considered nearly extinct and the Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna being added to the International Union for the World’s Red List of Threatened Species Conservation of Nature (IUCN). in 2015.
According to the researchers, the Attenborough long-beaked echidna (also known as the Cyclops long-beaked echidna) is the smallest species of the long-beaked echidna genus. Due to its size, the animal resembles the short-beaked echidna more than other species in its genus. Little is known about its behavior. It is believed that the nocturnal animal resides in its underground burrow during the day and searches the earth for worms with its long beak at night.
The Attenborough long-snouted echidna lives in an area of about 50 square kilometers in the Cyclops Mountains, in the northeast of the Indonesian province of Papua. Its habitat includes the forested peaks of mountains approximately 1,600 meters above sea level. Only five species are known from this particular branch of evolution, which is believed to have split from the rest of the mammals around 200 million years ago.
Fell into a camera trap on the last day of the expedition
The cyclops long-snouted echidna has only been scientifically recorded once: in 1961, when the Dutch botanist Pieter van Royen discovered it. Since then, only the Yongsu Sapari people living in this area have reported sightings of this unusual animal. Only on the last day of their expedition did the researchers manage to photograph the shy animal with a camera trap, the University of Oxford reports on its website.
Source: Krone
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