Long-lost mammal rediscovered in remote mountains


Needle in a haystack: An echidna walking amid vegetation in the Cyclops Mountains, Papua, Indonesia. — Reuters

Scientists have rediscovered a long-lost species of mammal described as having the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater and the feet of a mole, in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains more than 60 years after it was last recorded.

Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, named after British naturalist David Attenborough, was photographed for the first time by a trail camera on the last day of a four-week expedition led by Oxford University scientists.

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