Jan.
2, 2013 — The western long-beaked echidna, one of the world's five
egg-laying species of mammal, became extinct in Australia thousands of years
ago…or did it? Smithsonian scientists and colleagues have found evidence
suggesting that not only did these animals survive in Australia far longer than
previously thought, but that they may very well still exist in parts of the
country today.
The
team's findings are published in the Dec. 28, 2012 issue of the journal ZooKeys.
With
a small and declining population confined to the Indonesian portion of the
island of New Guinea, the western long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus bruijnii) is
listed as "Critically Endangered" on the International Union for
Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species. It is also considered
extinct in Australia, where fossil remains from the Pleistocene epoch
demonstrate that it did occur there tens of thousands of years ago. Ancient
Aboriginal rock art also supports the species' former presence in Australia.
However, no modern record from Australia was known to exist until scientists
took a closer look at one particular specimen stored in cabinets in the
collections of the Natural History Museum in London. Previously overlooked, the
specimen's information showed that it was collected from the wild in
northwestern Australia in 1901―thousands of years after they were thought to
have gone extinct there.
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