Endangered egg-laying mammal seen for the first time in over 60 years

An expedition through a perilous mountain range in Indonesia captured the first-ever photographic evidence of the species, which has a unique and fragile evolutionary history.

An expedition through an unpredictable, perilous mountain range in Indonesia’s province of Papua led to the rediscovery of a critically endangered egg-laying mammal that hasn’t been seen for more than 60 years.

For the researchers of Expedition Cyclops, Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna — a bizarre-looking, quill-covered creature with powerful digging feet — is a symbol of the biodiversity that can be rediscovered in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains.

On a nine-week expedition, a 25-person crew battled malaria and earthquakes, and one student researcher even had a leech stuck in their eye for 33 hours.

“Climbing those mountains I like to think of as climbing a ladder whose rungs are made of rotting wood, with rails cladded in spikes and thorns, and a frame shrouded by sunken vines and falling rocks,” said team leader James Kempton of Oxford.

The less than 90-square-mile mountain range has been subject to illegal hunting for years. It’s the only habitat for Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, which is considered critically endangered and is on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.