by Tim Flannery
Were they more plentiful, and perhaps less powerful excavators, Long-beaked Echidnas would make companions as fine as dogs. But they may well be extinct before too long.
Reproduction in Long-beaked Echidnas presents a bit of an enigma to most New Guineans. Like all monotremes, or egg-laying mammals, they have no externally visible genitals (except when the male has an erection) nor even secondary sexual characteristics such as nipples. Furthermore, young ones are never seen. Presumably they remain hidden in burrows dug by their mothers.
The Goilala told me that echidnas did not breed like other animals, but that they possessed drills, rather like miniature rigs (some Goilala had seen these working at mining exploration camps), which they used to generate young. These drills, they told me, would be used to penetrate the forest floor, and when they had reached a suitable depth, a drop of blood would be secreted from the tip. This would eventually form itself into a young echidna. The parent would then visit the site regularly to feed the young with urine produced from the end of the ‘drill’. When it was of almost adult size, the young would emerge.
At first I regarded this story as nothing more than a flight of fancy. It was only when I saw a male echidna rampant, so to speak, that I realised where the notion of the ‘drill’ had come from. The penis of the Long-beaked Echidna is a truly impressive organ. Ten centimetres long, it is surmounted at its head by a coronet of four large papillae which do indeed give it something of the appearance of a drill bit.
The Neon Basin also abounded with wallabies and giant rats. The wallabies (a kind of pademelon, or scrub wallaby, of the genus Thylogale) grow to about the size of a collie dog. And the giant rats of the Neon, at almost a metre long, are not that much smaller. Eventually, specimens of both these species were to be of great importance to my research, for both turned out to be unknown to science. As with these animals, it is often the case that species new to science go unrecognised in the field (especially by inexperienced researchers), and that detailed study and comparison is necessary in the lab to untangle their taxonomy. This was particularly true before 1990, when no guide to New Guinea's mammals existed.
Signs of wallabies were abundant in the grasslands of Mt Albert Edward in 1981. Their droppings littered the tussocks. By using dogs to locate them as they rested by day inside the forest, our hunters caught many. Much to my surprise, I later learned that Mt Albert Edward was one of the very few places in New Guinea where one could still see such wallabies. Elsewhere, such as in the highlands of Irian Jaya and on Mt Wilhelm (PNG's tallest mountain), they are long extinct.
As I learned this I began to wonder about the future of the Mt Albert Edward wallaby population. How much hunting would it take to exterminate them? After all, probably the entire population rested by day just inside the fringe of forest surrounding the grassland. Being so concentrated, they are easy targets for a hunter with dogs. Having visited places where they have been exterminated, I suspect they survive on Mt Albert Edward only because the forest is a little denser than elsewhere, and perhaps because hunting pressure is a little less. But with the influx of people to Kosipe, just a day's walk from the Neon, how will they fare in future?
The high-elevation wallabies (such as those of the Neon) differ from those living in the forests lower down. They are smaller, have denser coats and more thickly furred tails, and sport bright stripes over their rump and shoulders. In 1993 I described them as a new species, naming them Thylogale calabyi after my old friend John Calaby, who had just retired after devoting a lifetime to scientific studies.
The giant rats were more difficult to deal with. At the time we collected them I assumed that all belonged to a single, well-known species of woolly rat called Mallomys rothschildi. Eventually some of the tissues I collected were sent to the South Australian Museum for biochemical analysis. The laboratory wrote back inquiring whether I could possibly have made a mistake in labelling them, for their analysis showed they could not possibly all belong to one species. The critical specimen was a large female rat collected on the margin of the Neon Basin. Its tissues were strikingly different from all the others.
I went to examine the rat. Perversely, this one, of all the specimens collected, had met a dismal fate. It had been located in its burrow by hunting dogs, and was half consumed before we could retrieve it. All that we had been able to rescue were a hand, a foot, a piece of liver (frozen for analysis) and the skull. Faced with such incomplete data, I realised that I needed to examine all of the woolly rat specimens available if I was to resolve the enigma.
Having examined many specimens of woolly rats in museum collections in places as far afield as Canberra, Sydney, London, Hawaii, New York and Berlin, I came to the conclusion that there was not one but four species. The mangled specimen from Mt Albert Edward represented an unnamed species. Thankfully, its pitiful remains had retained enough diagnostic features for me to be able to distinguish it.
Finally, we were able to locate a few other, better preserved examples of this same species. The most complete was collected in 1945 near Mount Hagen by Captain Neptune B. Blood, an Australian kiap who had spent years in New Guinea and was known as the ‘King of the Western Highlands’. He had sold the rat to the Australian Museum, where it had lain unrecognised until our study in 1988. I and my co-authors decided to name the new species Mallomys istapantap. The rather curious second part of the name came from what our hunters always told us of the species—dispela i stap antap (this animal lives on top of the mountain). Its penchant for elevated environments is also reflected in its common name, the Subalpine Woolly-rat.
The collection of tissues for analysis involves some practices which almost anyone except a biologist would find bizarre. Take for example the culture of chromosome preparations. These preparations are best made from cells taken from the testes. Obtaining and stabilising the samples is an involved process, necessitating the culturing of the sample at scrotal temperature.
First, one must slice open a testicle, then place its contents in a small plastic tube full of a culture medium. This must be sealed and placed beside one's own scrotum (or if you lack one, between the breasts) for an hour or so. The liquid is then drained off, some other operations performed, and a preservative added.
My Goilala friends, not surprisingly, found this to be an extraordinary process which commanded their deep attention. I needed to obtain samples from only a few individuals of each species we collected, but the process had become such an important ritual to the Goilala that they were quite disappointed whenever I passed over an animal without performing it. Indeed, whenever anyone new arrived in camp, they invariably requested a repeat performance.
By far the most common of the larger animals we encountered in the Neon were the cuscusses and ringtail possums. These are tree-dwelling marsupials that can weigh several kilograms. They are similar to Australia's brushtail and ringtail possums. During our sojourn there they fed us and our hunters, proving a welcome relief from the canned bully beef and mackerel that were our only other sources of protein.
Of all the possums, the Silky Cuscus (Phalanger sericeus) is one of the most attractive. About the size of a cat, its fur is long and luxurious, and as the common name suggests is silky to the touch. The back is a rich, almost blackish brown, which contrasts with the white belly. The creature has the peculiarity of walking around with its tail wound up tightly like a spring, so that it is not visible among the dense fur. This gives the robust animal the appearance of a small bear.
One day our hunters captured a female Silky Cuscus, which they killed. A half-grown, bright-eyed and irresistibly attractive joey in her pouch had, however, survived. Knowing that it was destined for a painful death and the cooking fire, I decided to try to keep it alive until I could place it in a zoo somewhere. It was clear that the bitterly cold nights on the mountain would kill it, so I wrapped it in a sock and slept with it curled snugly on my belly.
The first time we shared a sleeping bag I was awoken in the dead of night by a
gentle and not unpleasant nibbling on my inner thigh. Moments later I rose vertically out of my bed with a yell of pain. A pair of red-hot tongs had grasped the end of my penis.
The baby cuscus had managed to thrust its head through one of the several holes in my sock and, seeking either revenge or succour, had bitten mightily into the first thing it encountered.
Inside the hut, all was madness. The Goilala beheld before them a frantic white man screaming unintelligibly, wearing the strange night attire of a single sock oddly attached to the end of his willie. All I could see were wild-eyed Goilala, loosing arrows randomly into the night as the imagined enemy closed in. This must be the dread Kukukuku—their traditional enemy whose land bordered the Neon, and whose presence made it a risky place to visit.
Total chaos. Eventually, when I could explain what had happened, my Goilala companions all went back to their beds, muttering darkly about the long long (idiot) white man in their midst.
The trek down from the Neon Basin was not easy. Our group of at least twenty carriers was variously burdened. The two surest-footed were given the task of carrying the liquid nitrogen cylinder. This barrel-sized container is in reality a large vacuum flask. It was by far our most important and fragile item of field equipment, for in it were stored all our frozen tissues, the fruit of much labour.
This unwieldy object was suspended from a pole, to which it was tied tightly with bush vines. At each tilt from the horizontal it let out a puff of white vapour, remarkably similar to the mists which were so feared by the mountaineers.
Other carriers had less awkward but no less important burdens—the prickly Long-beaked Echidna in a sack, a plastic drum full of specimens preserved in formalin, a box of traps. I had my pack, and Percy, as my small cuscus was by then known.
My heart was in my mouth a hundred times on the descent as the flask tilted and the carriers wavered, tempted to drop their precious cargo and run.
But several days later I limped successfully into Woitape with Percy in hand and the cylinder safe.
FIVE
The poet and the python
The day of our departure from the mountains saw us all assembled at Woitape airstrip. Ken, still keen to augment our collections, was doing a little last-minute frog gathering in the nearby bush. I was relaxing, sitting next to our pile of equipment, when my attention was caught by a curious procession crossing the airstrip.
An entire village appeared to be heading our way. At the head of the group were two men carrying a large tea-chest strung on poles. This was placed before me in great excitement. I looked through the fly-wire screen which served as a lid, and understood what all the fuss was about. There, inside, sat curled the largest, blackest and fiercest-looking snake I had ever seen.
I later discovered that it was a Boelan's Python (Liasis boelani), a rare snake which is only found in New Guinea's mountains. It was nearly three metres long, and had soaked up the energising warmth of the morning sun.
Suddenly the snake struck. Its head, the size of my fist, rose violently against the fly-wire, shaking the tea-chest. For a moment its fangs—each over a centimetre long—stuck fast in the mesh. The crowd recoiled in horror, children wailing and women screaming.
Clearly, I was expected to deal with this snake.
Seeking inspiration as to how I might proceed, I asked the men how they had got it into the tea-chest in the first place. Well, they said, it had been found in the jungle while it was shedding its skin. It was then cold, and the scales covering its eyes were opaque, making it relatively easy to handle.
All that, alas, had now changed.
I badly wanted to purchase the snake, sensing that it was something special. The trouble was that there was no way that the tea-chest would fit into the Cessna which was to carry us to Port Moresby. The snake would have to be re-housed, preferably in a spare gunny sack, if it was to be transported.
With dread in my heart, I called upon one of the braver locals to distract the monster with a cloth. Gingerly I undid the fly-wire, and with a dash grasped the reptile behind the head. It seemed strangely calm as I withdrew it from the tea-chest. Perhaps it knew who was in control, and it was merely awaiting its opportunity.
In an instant it threw its coils tightly round my forearm and began to pull its enormous head through my hand. In retaliation, I grasped it by the tail with my free hand. This stymied it momentarily, but it soon had another coil on me, this time round my right knee.
I seemed to be losing the battle.
I tried to summon reinforcements. Hobbling from one group of Goilala to another, I begged for help.
What I needed was someone to hold open the gunny sack so I could dispose of this monster inside it. But everyone fled screaming in terror as the snake and its prospective meal approached them.
Then another coil was thrown around the hand which held the tail. I watched in amazement as my hand became miraculously fastened to my knee by the snake's muscular body.
Now I found myself performing a desperate sort of Russian bear dance on one leg, still begging urgently for a volunteer to hold the sack.
I was about to resign myself to a dismal end when Ken appeared, attracted by the screams of the retreating Goilala. He helped untangle the monster, then held the bag open as I flung the snake in. I fastened the mouth of the sack with string. The beast writhed and hissed inside. It would be a better guard of our equipment than I could ever be—by leaving it beside our luggage I could abandon my duties and enjoy the shade of the trees.
The time now came to pay for the snake. As the haggling went on Ken had a brilliant idea—we would pay for it in kind, and by the metre. We took out our remaining canned goods and, by laying the tins of Ox & Palm bully beef end to end, attempted to approximate the snake's length. Some of the locals suddenly believed this must be the mother of all snakes—five metres in length and growing by the minute. When I bluffingly offered to take the reptile from its sack to allow them to obtain a more accurate estimate, however, they quickly settled for a lesser length.
As we finalised our purchase, we heard the aircraft make its approach. It had come from Kosipe where it had picked up Penelope and Alec Hope, and was crammed with the Hopes’ luggage and samples. Nonetheless we found sufficient nooks and crannies in the hold to stow most of our cargo.
Finally only the writhing gunny sack remained. The pilot, a florid, overweight Australian who subsequently flew into the side of a mountain, nervously asked what it contained. When told, he expressed great reluctance to have it aboard the aircraft at all. Attracted by the commotion, Alec Hope (bless him) stepped out of the front passenger seat and joined the conversation. It was then that I found out what a gentleman he really was. Without the slightest indication of reluctance, he said, ‘Well, if a place can't be found for it elsewhere, it will just have to ride on my knee.’
The pilot looked set to have a heart attack as we took off. The floridness of his complexion increased alarmingly, and he was sweating profusely. Once, when he reached for a lever which lay between himself and A. D. Hope, his hand brushed against the struggling sack, with near-disastrous consequences. A Papuan woman, who had also booked a seat on the flight from Kosipe, actually attempted to open the window and disembark, mid-flight, when she heard what was in the sack.
On touching down in Port Moresby I lost no time taking the snake to the Department of Environment's crocodile farm at Moitaka. There it lived happily for some years, terrifying several generations of Port Moresby school children.
Now I had to take care of Percy the possum. We soon discovered that he suffered greatly from the lowland heat. So (much to the dismay of some of the staff at Burns Philp) he spent several weeks in their cool store, then in an air-conditioned office, before finally arriving safely at Taronga Zoo in Sydney.
The time had come for me to leave Papua New Guinea. Ken and I packed our specimens tightly into drums and obtained the necessary paperwork to export them to Australia.
When we touched down in Sydn
ey, the long trek seemed to be over. On the other side of the customs and quarantine barrier our friends and family were waiting.
I must have looked less than trustworthy in those days. Or perhaps it was our sinister-looking cargo of black drums and steel canisters that alerted the officials. Whatever the case, we were taken aside by a bunch of severe-looking uniformed officers with sniffer dogs, and given a complete search.
They squeezed out my toothpaste tube, opened each letter and envelope, and went through each smelly drum. Meanwhile, we staunchly maintained that every single specimen had been preserved in formalin and was registered legally on our import permit, and was thus eligible for entry into Australia.
After a gruelling three hours, our patience was wearing thin. Finally I was waved on just as the last items from Ken's pack were being checked. I saw an officer retrieve a roll of zip-lock plastic bags. Ken said irritably that it was a roll which we had not even opened.
As the officer unzipped one of the bags, an extraordinary scene took place. He dropped the bag, recoiling with nose wrinkled. The sniffer dogs seemed to fall into paroxysms. Their delicate noses, trained to detect the faintest odour of any illicit substance, were clearly under violent assault.
Ken, white-faced and horrified, finally remembered where he had hurriedly put the frogs all those days ago when he heard the screams which heralded my struggle with the python.
The serpent now had its final revenge.
PART II
MIYANMIN
SIX
Spat from the sky
For two long years after my trip to Mt Albert Edward I was compelled to remain in Australia. I had begun a doctoral degree in zoology. My topic was the evolution of kangaroos. It gave little opportunity for more work in New Guinea, but things were not entirely hopeless, since the island is home to one obscure but fascinating genus.