Scientists Discover ‘Lost World’ in New Guinea

JEFFREY BROWN:

It's being described as a lost world of strange animals and new species, a place virtually untouched by humans.

In December, scientists traveled to the remote Foya Mountain range on the western half of New Guinea, which is part of Indonesia. There, they discovered at least 40 species of birds, frogs, butterflies and plants.

Here to tell us about is Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the expedition, and a vice president with the group Conservation International.

Welcome to you.

BRUCE BEEHLER, Vice President, Conservation International:

Thanks, Jeff. It's great to be here.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Set the scene for us first. What does the place look like? How do you get there? Are there indigenous people there?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

This is an isolated place. It's far from just about anywhere. It's about just as far as you can get from this part of the world as you can get.

You have to take — first find a charter plane, get a small Cessna, a single-engine plane, and fly for about an hour from the provincial capital of Jayapura. You land at a little grass airstrip in the jungle, beautiful tropical rain forest in the lower Mamberamo Basin.

And then you need the luck of getting a charter helicopter into this airstrip to pick you up, take you up to around 5,000 feet above sea level, into a little clearing in the forest on top of this small mountain range in the middle of the island of New Guinea.

JEFFREY BROWN:

And are there indigenous people who live in the area?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Absolutely. And they were our hosts there.

So, we landed at a little landing ground called Kwerba. And that's where the Kwerba people live. They live nowhere else on Earth. And they speak the Kwerba language. And there are only about 250 of them on Earth.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Now, about 25 years ago, as I understand, some scientists were there, including Jared Diamond, now well known for his books.

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Absolutely. Professor Jared Diamond of UCLA was the first person to get up into these mountains.

And the remarkable thing was, he found a lost bowerbird called the golden-fronted bowerbird. And it was a bird that had been essentially lost to science for about 100 years. So, it was a really — it was great excitement in the scientific world. And that's where he really sort of taught the world about the Foya Mountains.

JEFFREY BROWN:

But no one went back. And you have been wanting to go for these several decades.

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Well, we — we planned and worked for about 24 years to make this happen. And — and it's just — it's very complex. You need a lot of permits. It's a bit sensitive there. And, also, it's just hard to get to.

JEFFREY BROWN:

So, once you got there, how unusual was it to find so many new things?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Pretty unusual. I have been working on the island of New Guinea since 1975. That's more than 30 years. And I have never found a new species of bird. And we have never found — we have never been to a place where you can find scores of new species. And, really the significance of that, is this — this little mountain range is big enough, high enough, wet enough, to be producing its own species.

These are species that live nowhere else on Earth.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Why don't tell us about some of what you found? You just mentioned the bowerbird.

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Sure.

JEFFREY BROWN:

This is — this is an unusual story about how they build a — it builds a hut, or something like that?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Well, bowerbirds, in general, they live in Australia and New Guinea region, are sort of jay-sized, robin-sized birds that are unusual, first, because the males and females don't mate for life. They're — the males are polygamists.

And their main job in life is to build what we could call a love bower or love tower in the forest out of natural materials. They build — in this case, they build a tower of sticks, surrounded by a mossy dance ground in the forest, that they then ornament with blue fruit.

And this — this, the male comes to every day, every morning, singing, tidying up, and hoping for females to come. And his main job is to mate with as many females as possible at this bower.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Now, we should say, you're an ornithologist and bird — a bird man, right?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Yes. That's right.

JEFFREY BROWN:

So, this stuff is what turns you on, right?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

This is definitely exciting stuff.

I work on birds of paradise for my doctoral research in New Guinea. And this group, the birds of paradise and the bowerbirds, are very similar, in both are polygamists, with males that are beautifully ornamented with wonderful colors and things like that. So, it really is a treat to be able to see these in life.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Well, tell us about what you saw there. You saw the six-wired bird of paradise? What is that?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

The — Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise is one of a group of six-wired birds of paradise. There are five species. This is the sixth.

It was one that, like the bowerbird, seemed to be lost to science, forgotten by us. And it had never been seen by Western scientists before. It had arrived in Europe as a trade skin back at the turn of the century — the last — the prior century, the Victorian Age, when women wore all sorts of beautiful bird feathers in their hats.

Men, naturalists, got hold of these birds, and described them to science, gave them names, but didn't know where they came from. So, this was a bird that came from somewhere in New Guinea, but nobody knew where. So, when we found this, it was much like what Jared described — discovered when he first went there. He found the bowerbird. We found the bird of paradise.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Now, you also found a new species of what's called a honeyeater bird, correct?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Right.

Yes, a group of birds called the honeyeaters, again, about the size of a blue jay, many, many species in Australia and New Guinea. This happens to be one that only lives in the Foya Mountains. So, that's — the honeyeater bird, by itself, is — is an interesting, sort of weird-looking bird. But, really, the interesting thing is, it only lives in the Foya Mountains.

JEFFREY BROWN:

And I read that you were hoping to name it after your wife. Is that correct?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

I..

JEFFREY BROWN:

Are you allowed to do that?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

I am allowed to do that, apparently.

(Laughter)

BRUCE BEEHLER:

And we have a manuscript in — in preparation. And it's a matter of submitting it and seeing whether the scientists — other scientists agree that this is OK.

JEFFREY BROWN:

So, it's going to be — what's your wife's name?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Carol (ph). It's going to be named after…

JEFFREY BROWN:

So, it's going to be the Carol honeyeater bird?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Yes.

(Laughter)

JEFFREY BROWN:

Then there is also was a very strange-looking animal called a giant echidna?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Yes.

Some people call them spiny anteaters. The echidna group is part of an ancient group of mammals called the monotremes. There are only — there are somewhere between five and six species. They are egg-laying mammals. They are the only mammals on Earth that lay eggs.

And they have all sorts of other weird habits. This — this little guy — well, he is not so little — he weighs about 15 pounds — creeps around on the ground. Using his long beak, he — he pokes into the soft earth to gather up earthworms. And he also burrows in the ground when he seems — he gets fearful of predators or things like that. And he has got — but he also has these porcupine-like spines all over his back. He's a weird one. There's no question about it.

JEFFREY BROWN:

What is it like — and I ask this for all of us who spend most of our days, you know, in cars, in traffic…

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Sure.

JEFFREY BROWN:

… or — or at the office. What is it like to be in a place that is so virtually untouched by human hands?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Well, remember, it took me 25 years, 24, 25 years, to get there.

So, for me, in particular, it was very, very special. Of course, you're getting there. You don't have to hike. You get there by helicopter. You're just — you're dropped through the clouds. You're left. The helicopter goes away. You're all alone. There's not a single trail. There's not a Coke can, no sound of cars, no planes going over, even, just absolute isolation.

It's really a lovely kind of isolation. And there's a kind of silence, except it's not really silent, because the birds are singing. The crickets are — are chirping, the katydids and — and the frogs. It's — it's really as close as you can get to nirvana for an ornithologist or a tropical ecologist. It's really very special.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Last question.

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Last question.

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Why — why does it matter? I mean, why does it matter if there are new species of plants, birds, animals in a — in a remote part of New Guinea?

BRUCE BEEHLER:

It — you know, all of these things are part of our world. And we're losing them, you know, day by day.

We read in the paper about this. Especially areas that are untouched by humankind are particularly precious as a baseline, as a sort of a laboratory, where we can keep touch with what the original world was before we got here and before we started changing things. So, that, among many other reasons, is a — is a good reason that we need to conserve this.

JEFFREY BROWN:

All right, Bruce Beehler, thanks for sharing it with us.

BRUCE BEEHLER:

Thanks so much, Jeff.