John Carlos BaezMar 6

Wow - two new mammal species have just been discovered! Even better, one is of an entirely new genus.

One is a striped possum with an extraordinarily long fourth finger - twice as long as the rest - that it uses to get wood-boring insect larvae to eat. It was known to have lived in West Papua until about 6,000 years ago... but it's actually still there!

The other is a ring-tailed glider: a marsupial that can soar downwards through the air. Fossils from this genus have been found in eastern Australia and New Guinea, but those are hundreds of thousands of years old!

Both these new species were found on Bird's Head Peninsula on West Papua. And both were found by the same team, who must be feeling ecstatic right now. Of course they're not really "new": they were just flying under the radar.

More details and pictures here:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/05/marsupials-discovered-new-guinea

Show threadBartosz MilewskiMar 6
@johncarlosbaez
That reminds me of the lemur aye-aye that also has very long fingers.
Show threadDan PiponiMar 7
@BartoszMilewski @johncarlosbaez I don't normally suffer from anxiety from looking at pictures of animals but I can't help worrying about these poor little things breaking their fingers. Maybe they're flexible and resist breaking.
Show threadJohn Carlos BaezMar 7
@dpiponi @BartoszMilewski - somehow that picture seems to explain the term "aye-aye", which I've always been curious about.
Show threadBradleyKShermanMar 7
@johncarlosbaez @dpiponi @BartoszMilewski
Bird's Head Peninsula on West Papua soon to have a parking lot with a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot.
Show threadcliffordheath
@bks @johncarlosbaez @dpiponi @BartoszMilewski maybe not for a while, but this team was operating in this region because of the ongoing encroachment of old forest logging, which utterly destroys the only environment in which these species can live
Mar 7 at 12:55amMoshidon