Scientists Discover 'Lost World'

Dozens Of New Species, Wildlife Found In Isolated Indonesian Jungle

(AP)  Scientists discovered a "Lost World" in an isolated Indonesian jungle, identifying dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants, as well as large mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere, members of the expedition said Tuesday.

The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans during its rapid survey of the Foja Mountains, an area in eastern Indonesia with more than two million acres of old growth tropical forest, said Bruce Beehler, a co-leader of the month long trip.

Two Long-Beaked Echidnas, a primitive egg-laying mammal, simply allowed scientists to pick them up and bring them back to their camp to be studied, he said.

The December 2005 expedition to Papua province on the western side of New Guinea island was organized by the U.S.-based environmental organization Conservation International and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.

The World Wild Fund for Nature, which had no ties to the project, said finding previously unknown species in the sprawling nation, renowned for its rich biodiversity, was not unusual.

"There are many species that have not been identified" in Indonesia, said Chairul Saleh, a species officer for the global environmental conservation group.

Papua, the scene of a decades-long separatist rebellion that has left an estimated 100,000 people dead, is one of the country's most remote provinces, geographically and politically, and access by foreigners is tightly restricted.

The 11-member team of U.S., Indonesian and Australian scientists needed six permits before they could legally fly by helicopter to an open, boggy lakebed surrounded by forests near the range's western summit.

"There was not a single trail, no sign of civilization, no sign of even local communities ever having been there," said Beehler, adding that two headmen from the Kwerba and Papasena tribes, the customary landowners of the Foja Mountains, accompanied the expedition.

"They were as astounded as we were at how isolated it was," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Washington D.C. "As far as they knew, neither of their clans had ever been to the area."