The Latest Breaking News from New Guinea

The Ganges Shark: India's River Shark That Almost No One Has Seen Alive

A Shark That Lives in Fresh Water, Not the OceanThe Ganges shark, Glyphis gangeticus, is a true freshwater shark, not a bull shark passing through, not a myth, but a species that evolved specifically for the turbid, sediment-heavy waters of Indian river systems. Its eyes are unusually small and sit…

Times Life · 17h ago

In the 1990s, a predatory flatworm was released in Samoa to control giant African snails; it later drove native island snails toward extinction

Biological control efforts introduced the New Guinea flatworm to Pacific islands. This predator began hunting native land snails, pushing them toward extinction. The flatworm is a generalist predator, making it difficult to remove. Many native snails evolved without such predators and are now vulnerable. Conservationists now focus on protecting remaining…

The Economic Times · Aug 19

Giant kangaroos survived until 6,500 years ago on the New Guinea coast

Roughly 50,000 years ago, a kangaroo unlike any alive today lived in the mountain rainforests of New Guinea.

The Conversation · Jul 9

Most Unusual Pet in the World- You Won’t Believe These Choices

For most people, the word “pet” brings to mind a dog waiting at the door or a cat curled up by the window. Yet around the world, some animal lovers are drawn to creatures that feel almost unreal. They are tiny gliders that seem to fly, amphibians that can regrow…

Times Pets · May 3

Scientists find 2 marsupial species, thought to have gone extinct 6,000 years ago, living in the forests of New Guinea

The pygmy long-fingered possum and the ring-tailed glider, two marsupials believed to have died out thousands of years ago, are still alive in Papuan Indonesia.

LiveScience · Mar 6

Meet ‘Tous’ — an entirely new genus of mammal we identified. Here’s why it’s so exciting

Mammals are not especially diverse. Roughly 6,800 mammal species are known to exist, compared with about 8,800 species of amphibian, 11,000 species of bird and 12,500 of reptile. Yet when most people picture biodiversity, they often think of charismatic mammals first: pandas, orangutans, elephants or tigers.

The Conversation · Mar 5

Marsupials previously thought extinct for millennia discovered in New Guinea

The chances of finding one mammal species thought to be lost was ‘almost zero’ and finding two is ‘unprecedented’, biologist Tim Flannery says

The Guardian - AU · Mar 5

DNA evidence points to humans reaching Australia 60,000 years ago

The story of how people reached Australia and the Pacific has never sat still. Bits of evidence have shifted it back and forth over time. New genetic work, read alongside archaeology, nudges it further again. It suggests people were already moving into the landmass known as Sahul around 60,000 years…

The Times of India · Feb 9

A brief history of sugar

A few thousand years ago, sugar was unknown in the western world. Sugarcane, a tall grass first domesticated in New Guinea around 6000BC, was initially chewed for its sweet juice rather than crystallised. By around 500BC, methods to boil sugarcane juice into crystals was first developed in India.

The Conversation · Jan 26

Different croaks: new frog and gecko species discovered on remote island in Australia’s north

Researchers on expedition to Dauan Island heard two distinct frog calls in the rain and ‘sure enough, they were species new to science’

The Guardian - AU · Oct 16, 2025