Pristine jungle in Foja Mts. possible home to new species

by William Atkins

Wednesday, 19 December 2007

Possible new species, at least within human knowledge, have been discovered in an area called a “lost world” because of its very nature: a pristine jungle within a remote mountainous area in the northern part of Papua, Indonesia.

One of the possible new species found in the jungle was a giant rodent—Mallomys giant rat—which weighs about 3.1 pounds (1.4 kilograms). It is is about five times the weight of a common sewer rat.

A pygmy possum—Cercarteus pygmy possum—was also discovered, which is now considered one of the world’s smallest marsupials.

Bruce Beehler led the June 2007 expedition that included scientists from Conservation International (CI), a nonprofit conservation group, and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.

They went into the Foja Mountains (or Foja Range, in Indonesian it is called “Pegunungan Foja”), which is just north of the Mamberamo river basin in Papua, Indonesia. The Foja Mountains, with the tallest peak at 7,195 feet (2,193 meters), is considered the largest pristine tropical forest in the Asia-Pacific area.

Along with these two new discoveries, the Beehler expedition also observed the golden-fronted bowerbird (Amblyornis flavifrons), the black sicklebill bird of paradise (Epimachus fastuosus), the wattled smoky honeyeater (Melipotes carolae), and the Berlepsch’s six-wired bird of paradise (Parotia berlepschi).

Although the Foja Mountains contains over 104 million acres (42 million hectares) of tropical forests, contains a large population of animal species (many never seen before), and is considered a very natural rainforest without human encrochment, it is being threatened from recent human activities including the clearing of trees for palm oil and lumber. Most valuable are over 740,000 acres (300,000 hectares) of old growth tropical rainforest in the center of the range.

Only a few hundred natives live in the Foja Mountains.

The first scientific expedition of humans into the area, from the United States, Indonesia, and Australia, is believed to have taken place in December 2005. No roads exist in the mountains, and the expedition members entered with the use of a helicopter.

For more information on the Foja Mountains, please read the National Geographic article "’Lost World’ Found in Indonesia Is Trove of New Species.”

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