Conversation

Wow - two new mammal species have just been discovered! We had thought we'd found them all. 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! This one was also found in West Papua.

Both these new mammal species 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.

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