An ancient egg-laying mammal which some thought may have been extinct has been rediscovered.
The Attenborough echidna, named after British naturalist David Attenborough, was filmed by a trail camera in July, in the Cyclops Mountains, Papua Indonesia, during an expedition led by Oxford University researchers.
Dubbed “living fossils”, they are believed to have roamed the Earth around 200 million years ago, with dinosaurs.
The species has only been scientifically recorded once before - by a Dutch botanist in 1961.
This latest recording was captured in a camera trap on the last day of the excursion.
Biologist James Kempton said he spotted the clip after he and his colleagues had descended from the mountains.
He said: "There was a great sense of euphoria, and also relief having spent so long in the field with no reward until the very final day.
"I shouted out to my colleagues that were still remaining... and said 'we found it, we found it' - I ran in from my desk to the living room and hugged the guys."
Echidnas share their name with a half-woman, half-serpent Greek mythological creature, and were described by the team as shy, nocturnal burrow-dwellers who are notoriously difficult to find.
They are a member of the monotremes – “an egg-laying group that separated from the rest of the mammal tree-of-life about 200 million years ago,” Mr Kempton said.
The scientist’s team survived an earthquake, malaria and even a leech attached to an eyeball during their trip.
They worked with the local village Yongsu Sapari to navigate and explore the remote terrain of northeastern Papua.
The echidna is embedded in the local culture, including a tradition that states conflicts are resolved by sending one party to a disagreement into the forest to search for the mammal and another to the ocean to find a marlin, according to Yongsu Sapari elders cited by the university.
Both creatures were seen as so difficult to find that it would often take decades or a generation to locate them, but, once found, the animals symbolised the end of the conflict and a return to harmonious relationships.
