Two Long-Lost Animals Found in Remote Forests

Scientists didn't just find a "living fossil" in West Papua—they found two. In remote rainforests of New Guinea's West Papua region, researchers have confirmed living populations of a tiny striped marsupial called the pygmy long-fingered possum and a ring-tailed glider with a prehensile tail, both believed to have vanished around 6,000 years ago, reports the BBC. The two mammals are what biologists call "Lazarus species," organisms that disappear from the fossil record only to turn up alive much later. Both the BBC and the Guardian have multiple photos of each.

"The discovery of one Lazarus taxon ... is an exceptional discovery," says Australian scientist Tim Flannery. "But the discovery of two species, thought to have been extinct for thousands of years, is remarkable." The possum (Dactylonax kambuayai) has a distinctive extra-long fourth finger on each hand, which it uses to fish wood-boring insect larvae out of trees. The ring-tailed glider (Tous ayamaruensis) is related to Australia's greater glider, per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It sleeps in tree hollows and uses its grasping tail to navigate the canopy.

The finds didn't come from a single lucky trek. Scientists pieced together decades of fossil evidence, old museum specimens, and rare photographs, then teamed up with Indigenous communities in the Tambrauw and Maybrat regions to track down the animals in the field. Local elders—some with only a few decades of contact with the outside world—provided knowledge crucial to identifying the species. The findings are published in the Records of the Australian Museum.