In the same issue of the journal, Flannery was also the lead author of a report<\/a> on the existence of another species scientists thought was extinct: the pygmy long-fingered possum (Dactylonax kambuayai).<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a massive joint effort,\u201d Flannery says. He and his co-authors on the research acknowledge \u201cthe fundamentally important approach of integrating both indigenous ways of knowing and understanding the world, and scientific approaches\u201d in the paper describing the ring-tailed glider. For Flannery, that lesson comes from more than 45 years working on mammal zoology in New Guinea.<\/p>\n \u201cMy career really is a result of the cumulative knowledge that\u2019s been passed on to me by tribal elders all across the island,\u201d he says. \u201cThey really are my great professors. They\u2019re the people that I learn from.\u201d<\/p>\n Decades of listening, building trust and working with local communities and Indigenous groups have helped Flannery shine a light on the wondrous diversity of mammals living in what one scientist describes as a \u201cnatural laboratory of diversification.\u201d But New Guinea and the people who call it home also face the threats of the modern world from development, agriculture and logging. Flannery says he hopes a similar spirit of collaboration will ensure these species persist.<\/p>\n In the elders\u2019 descriptions, Korain noticed something different in the way they talked about the animal they called tous wan. Often, her questions were met with a deferential way of speaking in a \u201clow tone.\u201d The women typically wouldn\u2019t use its name at all, instead referring to it as \u201cthat animal.\u201d<\/p>\n That deference tipped off Korain that \u201cit is probably something that\u2019s sacred in our culture,\u201d she tells Mongabay. Soon, she was mining the recesses of her memory, thinking back to stories her father told her of initiation rites that would take boys into the forest for a year or more for \u201ctraditional education\u201d \u2014 in hunting, medicinal plants and sacred rituals, Korain says.<\/p>\n In their interviews with Baru and Yesnat, she and Flannery uncovered not just the animal\u2019s existence but its role in Tambrauw cosmology.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really seems to be at the center of knowledge in a complex series of initiations that bring cultural prestige with them,\u201d says Flannery, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Australian Museum. That made it challenging to discern whether it still existed because, he explains, \u201cInitially, we didn\u2019t understand that it was such a sensitive animal, such an important animal culturally.\u201d<\/p>\n As Korain and Flannery spent time with Baru and Yesnat, the elders began to open up about the glider, its behavior and where to find it, and why it was sacred to them.<\/p>\n What the women referred to as \u201cthat animal\u201d was a gliding possum, with a curled, prehensile tail and the bulging eyes that befit its nocturnal habits. (The team is deliberately vague in describing the precise locations of these sightings, to protect the species from wildlife trafficking.)<\/p>\n New Guinea\u2019s varied topography and terrain have led to bursts of differentiation among species on the island. Robin Beck, a professor of biology at the U.K.\u2019s University of Salford, who wasn\u2019t involved in this research, calls New Guinea an \u201cengine of speciation,\u201d owing to its unique geological history and diverse habitats. That makes it a fascinating place for scientists to study.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the fossil record shows that the ancestors of the two species have ancient genealogical ties to Australia. Geologically<\/a>, the Bird\u2019s Head is part of the Australian continent and is \u201cvery different from the rest of New Guinea,\u201d Flannery says.<\/p>\n The peninsula is also a place where unusual traits evolve, at times converging with those of other species from distant parts of the globe \u2014 like the pygmy long-fingered possum, for example. They have \u201cspecialized ear regions\u201d that allow them to zero in on where beetle larvae are tucked away in rotting wood, Flannery says, along with robust incisors to tear away wood and get at their quarry. Most eye-catching is the possum\u2019s wildly extended fourth digit and curved claw, a remarkable adaptation used \u201cas a sort of fishing rod \u2026 to go in and hook the grub and pull it out of the burrow.\u201d Flannery thinks of long-fingered possum as \u201cmarsupial woodpeckers, in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s endlessly fascinating,\u201d he says of the decades he\u2019s spent studying New Guinea\u2019s animals. \u201cSometimes you just do sit back and think, \u2018Wow, how likely is it that anything like this would ever evolve?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Beck calls the Flannery-led research \u201creally fantastic\u201d and notes the cooperation necessary to bring these findings to the attention of the scientific world.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful that local people have been involved in the discovery,\u201d he tells Mongabay. For scientists, that collaboration is critical to finding the animals, but also to understanding how they live and behave.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do they find out about the biology of these organisms? Yes, they go out and observe them,\u201d Beck says. \u201cBut at least as valuable is to talk to the local people and say, \u2018Well, tell me about this animal.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re essential, really,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n For Flannery and his team, the intimate knowledge that the Tambrauw elders had of the ring-tailed glider opened a window into their habits. For instance, a mated pair of gliders has a single baby each year, Flannery says. And it lives in tall trees and will trim the leaves that are in its glide path from tree to tree, which the Tambrauw see as a type of gardening.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a sense, this animal is the ideal for humans. It\u2019s monogamous, has one wife, has a small family that it looks after, and it looks after its environment,\u201d Flannery says. \u201cAnd I think that is the central story for young men during initiation.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2023, University of Oxford biologist James Kempton led an expedition to the Cyclops Mountains in Indonesian Papua. The team revealed with camera-trap photographs that the egg-laying Attenborough\u2019s echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi), a species that scientists believed had gone extinct since it was last seen in 1961, still plied the mountains\u2019 forests<\/a>.<\/p>\n These findings, of the echidna, as well as those around the ring-tailed glider and the pygmy long-fingered-possum, are often framed as \u201crediscoveries\u201d of \u201clost\u201d or \u201cLazarus\u201d species. But that doesn\u2019t tell the full story, Kempton says.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we use terms like \u2018Lazarus species\u2019 and \u2018rediscoveries\u2019 and \u2018lost species,\u2019 that is only within the perspective of a subset of people\u201d \u2014 namely, the Western scientists who didn\u2019t know these species still existed, he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are not actually \u2018rediscoveries,\u2019\u201d Kempton adds. \u201cThey\u2019re just reports of knowledge that Indigenous communities have had for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n For the Cyclops expedition, he worked with Yayasan Pelayanan Papua Nenda (YAPPENDA), an Indonesian NGO that he credits with helping to find \u201ccommon ground\u201d between scientists and communities that made the echidna expedition a success.<\/p>\n Without that trust, such success can be elusive, says Malcolm Kobak, co-founder of YAPPENDA. He recounts a \u201chumbling\u201d story about his team\u2019s role in searching for Attenborough\u2019s echidna in 2023: An elder from the community of Yongsu Sapari, who are traditional owners of part of the Cyclops Mountains, said they had \u201cmisled\u201d prior expeditions because they didn\u2019t trust them. The echidna is sacred to the people of Yongsu Sapari, just as the ring-tailed glider is for the Tambrauw. YAPPENDA, by contrast, had taken the time to build relationships with the community\u2019s people, obtain their consent and include them in the expedition, the elder said, which demonstrated the organization\u2019s care for his people.<\/p>\n Those community members played invaluable roles that contributed to finding the echidna, Kobak says.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the Western scientists commented [that] these guys would be the best field biologists in the world,\u201d he adds. \u201cThey\u2019re just unbelievable in the forest,\u201d whether it was finding or spotting animals, or shimmying up a tree.<\/p>\n Kempton says he sees a future in which Indigenous-led fieldwork is the norm.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the case of Tim Flannery and his co-authors, that is exactly the kind of approach that they take,\u201d says Kempton, who wasn\u2019t involved in the work on the Bird\u2019s Head Peninsula. \u201cTim has always been a very responsible individual on this front and has always cultivated very strong and trusting relationships with Indigenous people.\u201d<\/p>\n The work continues for Flannery. He and his teammates aim to search for more species that are unknown or poorly understood by scientists, and to better understand the habits of the possum and the glider, to be sure. But they\u2019re also focused on working with scientists, Indigenous peoples and the Indonesian government to keep these places intact.<\/p>\n The Bird\u2019s Head\u2019s relatively extensive road network, its deepwater port and its accessibility to the rest of Indonesia mean that the forests there are vulnerable to logging \u2014 the logging that the Tambrauw say caused the disappearance of the ring-tailed glider in parts of its former range.<\/p>\n Elsewhere on the peninsula, plantation companies have eyed the primary lowland forests of the Klasow Valley as sites for oil palm, says Isai Onesimus Paa, a local guide from the village of Klalik. It was in the nearby lowland forests that co-author Carlos Bocos snapped the first photos of the long-fingered possum during a 2023 mammal-watching tour led by Bocos and Jon Hall.<\/p>\n Even before finding the possum, ecotourism has brought economic prosperity to the village, Paa tells Mongabay by WhatsApp message. The benefits that come from visiting tourists have provided more options and new opportunities for young people, who are now more likely to stay in Klalik, he adds. And now those visitors can see the long-fingered possum along with echidna, cuscus and tree kangaroo.<\/p>\n Still, communities in the Klasow Valley face an uncertain future, Paa says, if their customary land rights aren\u2019t respected.<\/p>\n \u201cBesides legal enforcement, indigenous communities must unite to defend their territories,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n The next steps for Flannery involve supporting those customary land rights in ways that complement broad-scale protections like national parks, he says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe that unless you involve the local, traditional owners of the forests, you don\u2019t have a long-term future in terms of conservation,\u201d Flannery adds.<\/p>\n Rika Korain, who\u2019s spent a career focused on environmental protection and human rights, sees the benefit of incorporating traditional values into conservation. She notes that for the Tambrauw, hunting the ring-tailed glider is taboo because the animal represents a connection to their ancestors.<\/p>\n Finding ways to uphold those values as part of the approach is a way to get people \u201cexcited about conservation,\u201d YAPPENDA\u2019s Malcolm Kobak says. \u201cSo why not design it as your strategy?\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s critical, he adds, is the involvement of communities from the beginning and throughout the process, just as it is for the success of research expeditions.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t protect the forest without the people,\u201d Kobak says, \u201cand you can\u2019t protect the people without the space that they live in.\u201d<\/p>\n Banner image: A pygmy long-fingered possum (Dactylonax kambuayai), photographed in 2023. Image courtesy of Jon Hall\/mammalwatching.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n John Cannon is a staff features writer with Mongabay. Find him on Bluesky<\/a> and LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n New pledge, old problems as Indonesia\u2019s latest Indigenous forest promise draws skepticism<\/a><\/p>\n Citations:<\/p>\n Flannery, T. F., Koungoulos, L. G., Meijaard, E., Yohanita, A. M., Muharmansyah, A., AlZaqie, I., . . . Helgen, K. M. (2026). A new genus of hemibelideine possum (Marsupialia: Pseudocheiridae) from New Guinea and Australia, including a Lazarus taxon from the Vogelkop Peninsula. Records of the Australian Museum, 78(1), 35-52. doi:10.3853\/j.2201-4349.78.2026.3004<\/a><\/p>\n Flannery, T. F., Aplin, K. P., Bocos, C., Koungoulos, L. G., & Helgen, K. M. (2026). Found alive after 6,000 years: modern records of an \u2018extinct\u2019 Papuan marsupial, Dactylonax kambuayai (Marsupialia: Petauridae), with a revision of the systematics and zoogeography of the genus Dactylonax. Records of the Australian Museum, 78(1), 17-34. doi:10.3853\/j.2201-4349.78.2026.3003<\/a><\/p>\n Flannery, T. F., Koungoulos, L. G., & Eldridge, M. D. B. (2026). Towards an understanding of marsupial interchange between Australia and New Guinea. Records of the Australian Museum, 78(1), 77-86. doi:10.3853\/j.2201-4349.78.2026.3007<\/a><\/p>\n Morib, G., Tilker, A., Davranoglou, L.-R., Anasari, S. D., Bal\u00e1zs, A., Barnes, P. A., . . . Kempton, J. A. (2025). Attenborough\u2019s echidna rediscovered by combining Indigenous knowledge with camera-trapping. npj Biodiversity, 4(1), 19. doi:10.1038\/s44185-025-00086-6<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Scientists](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20230611-BE4A9977.jpg\")
<\/a>Scientists thought the pygmy long-fingered possum had gone extinct 6,000 years ago, until a group of mammal watchers photographed one in 2023. Image courtesy of Jon Hall\/mammalwatching.com.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Flannery-et-al-RecAustMus-Tous-New-Guinea-map.jpg\")
<\/a>A map showing where the ring-tailed glider is found. Image courtesy of Flannery et al., 2026.
\n\u2018Something sacred\u2019<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Illustration-Peter-Schouten_Flannery-et-al-RecAustMus-Dactylonax-kambuayai-painting.jpeg\")
<\/a>An artist\u2019s rendering of the pygmy long-fingered possum (Dactylonax kambuayai). Image by Peter Schouten courtesy of Flannery et al., 2026.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DEW_7120.jpeg\")
<\/a>The ring-tailed glider (Tous ayamaruensis) holds a sacred place in Tambrauw culture. Image courtesy of Dewa\/FFI.
\nA question of perspective<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/research-camp-on-the-Birds-Head.jpg\")
<\/a>A research camp on the Bird\u2019s Head Peninsula in Indonesian Papua. Image courtesy of Shane McEvey.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Credit-Arman-Muharmansyah-.jpg\")
<\/a>A young ring-tailed glider (Tous ayamaruensis). Image courtesy of Arman Muharmansyah.<\/p>\n![\"Scientists](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Western-Province-PNG-jungle-photo-Shane-McEvey-2009.jpg\")
<\/a>Scientists believe that the forests of New Guinea likely hold species of mammal that are new \u2014 or have been \u2018lost\u2019 \u2014 to scientists. Image courtesy of Shane McEvey.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/9107d4825c02b08157c0fcd5d76225369727ff199bbfc6285f277af6d67d3d73.png\")
<\/p>\n