Lost World

This is the first photograph ever taken of what scientists are calling New Guinea's "lost" bird of paradise.The bird—known as Berlepsch’s six-wired bird of paradise—had been collected only once in the wild since its discovery more than a century ago. Its precise home range was unknown until now.

"Lost World" Found in Indonesia Is Trove of New Species

Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
February 7, 2006

To boldly go where no one has gone before, one group of scientists didn't have to venture into space. They found a lost world right here on Earth.

"It really was like crossing some sort of time warp into a place that people hadn't been to," said Bruce Beehler of the wildlife expedition he co-led in December into the isolated Foja Mountains on the tropical South Pacific island of New Guinea.

During a 15-day stay at a camp they had cut out of the jungle, the conservationists found a trove of animals never before documented, from a new species of the honeyeater bird to more than 20 new species of frogs.

"We were like kids in a candy store," said Beehler, a bird expert with Conservation International in Washington, D.C. "Everywhere we looked we saw amazing things we had never seen before."