Get me a photo of this animal. Alive. Footage would be even better.
This is Sir David’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi). It is native to the Cyclops Mountains of Indonesia’s Papua Province, which is on the island of New Guinea.
This is the only specimen known to the West. It was collected in 1961 by a Dutch botanist. It is found only in the Cyclops Mountains, and no one has seen a live one for decades.
It was once thought to be extinct in the wild, but there is some evidence in the form of burrows and tracks that it is still alive.
If we had good nature programming in this country, we’d have a show called Finding Echina, instead of Finding Bigfoot. Unlike bigfoot, we actually have a body. We know this thing exists. But it’s not a wookie, so no one really cares.
And every time I hear someone going on about New Guinea singing dogs, I am going to throw Sir Davids’ long-beaked echidna in their faces.
This is an animal that really is unique to a very small region. It was once thought to be extinct, and we know very little about it.
Why on earth are we wasting our time worrying about giant man apes in highly-populated, technologically advanced nations and New Guinea bush mongrels?
There real species that need to be discovered and documented are far more interesting!
I have a cuning plan. We pitch a TV series to Animal Planet about the Kayadi keeping these little echidnas as pets, ergo you find the echidna and you find the Papua New Guinea Bigfoot. Tadaa! It’s genuis, don’t you think?
Pure genius!
If I simply google this animal I get plenty of images of live ones online…but I know there are 3 Zaglossus varieties, so I can`t vouch for accuracy there.
There may also be video footage – I`ve seen it, but can`t remember where. Almost certainly in an old Attenborough film. There are a lot of those! Don`t ask me which one. Many of the original programmes he made for the BBC were simply not kept – there was no impetus to create a full archive in those days.
What a waste!
Elizabeth
us as humans have a very short memory this is why.