I didn't know there were such things.
Posted on 02/06/2006 5:31:51 PM PST by LibWhacker
Tue Feb 7, 2006 12:11 AM GMT166 Printer Friendly | Email Article | RSS
OSLO (Reuters) - Scientists said on Tuesday they had found a "Lost World" in an Indonesian mountain jungle, home to dozens of exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants.
"It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the U.S., Indonesian, and Australian expedition to part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in the west of New Guinea.
Indigenous peoples living near the Foja range, which rises to 2,200 metres, said they did not venture into the trackless area of 3,000 sq km -- roughly the size of Luxembourg or the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
The team of 25 scientists rode helicopters to boggy clearings in the pristine zone.
"We just scratched the surface," Beehler told Reuters. "Anyone who goes there will come back with a mystery."
The expedition found a new type of honeyeater bird with a bright orange patch on its face, known only to local people and the first new bird species documented on the island in over 60 years. They also found more than 20 new species of frog, four new species of butterfly and plants including five new palms.
And they took the first photographs of "Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise", which appears in 19th century collections but whose home had previously been unknown.
The bird is named after six fine feathers about 4 inches long on the head of the male which can be raised and shaken in courtship displays.
BIRD, BOWER, BERRIES
The expedition also took the first photographs of a Golden-fronted bowerbird in front of a bower made of sticks, while he was hanging up blue forest berries to attract females.
It found a rare tree kangaroo, previously unsighted in Indonesia. Beehler said the naturalists reckoned that there was likely to be a new species of kangaroo living higher altitudes.
The scientists visited in the wet season, which limited the numbers of flying insects. "Any expedition visiting in the dry season would probably discover many more butterflies," he said.
Beehler, who works at Conservation International in Washington, said the area was probably the largest pristine tropical forest in Asia. Animals there were unafraid of humans.
"I suspect there are some areas like this in Africa, and am sure that there are similar places in South America," he said.
Around the world, pristine areas are under increasing threat from expanding human settlements and pollution. A U.N. meeting in Brazil in March will seek ways to slow the currently accelerating rate of extinctions.
Beehler said the Indonesian government was doing the right thing by keeping the area off limits to most visitors -- including loggers and mineral prospectors.
The scientists cut two trails about 4 km long, leaving vast tracts still to be explored.
Rhode Island is not large at all.
Isn't this the one where the scientists get eaten by dinosaurs?
I didn't know there were such things.
It's interesting to know that there are still parts of the world that haven't been fully explored.
tree kangaroo?
Maybe they just hopped up there by mistake.
Yo how bout a little help here. I am not a "tree kangaroo", I am a TREED kangaroo, and I would really like to get down now!
This article would be more useful if they told us what these new animals taste like.
"Eee's nailed to the perch!"
< /python >
Some of these places are isolated for a reason. Let's hope they don't bring back some nasty virus or something that's lying dormant.
LOL!!!
Naw, they have their own scientific name (Dendrolagus lumholtzi ) and everything.
Would make a terrific team mascot, The Fightin' Tree Kangaroo's.
Chicken.
aye-aye.
Well lets start drilling for oil now before its declared a refuge
I think there's a couple places like that in Grants Pen, Kingston, Jaimaca.
Cool. We'll finally find out if Adam and Eve had belly buttons.
Isn't this the one where the scientists get eaten by dinosaurs?
One can only hope. (just kidding)
Tree kangaroos- one of the main ingredients in possum soup.
gee any thing that ugly would have to be a democrat.
Any way I didn't know Rhode Island was unexplored, a trackless waste, the only known home of that famous bird
the Roadapple Red.
As in, "you've seen one arboreal marsupial, you've seen 'em all"?
Yeah, tree kangaroo. That's half as many as six kangaroo.
I saw that guy on Jabba the Hutt's shoulder.
WOW! This is wonderful...buried treasure and no one knew!
If you look close you can see Al Gore on the right looking for chads
I think the muslims are lost they popped up here from the
7th century and dont know how to act.
As well as the native species ....
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