Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
slowly trundling down one of the survey paths. One of the local men put the rather helpless
creature in a large bag and toted it back to camp for the others to see.
The long-beaked echidna is the largest of the four echidnas. Although more commonly
known as spiny anteaters, echidnas have only an ancient relationship to the anteaters of South
America. Echidnas and their distant relative the duck-billed platypus defy the belief that
mammals are unable to lay eggs. Egg laying reveals these primitive mammals' primordial re-
lationship to lizards and birds and earns these species their own order of mammals, called the
Monotremata. Had the island's hunters frequented these uplands before the Beehler expedi-
tion, however, echidnas would have vanished, their meat being highly prized.
The highlanders may be among the sharpest-eyed hunters in the world. Their skill evolved
from necessity, as dietary protein is hard to find in this region. Their knowledge of local nat-
ural history is unparalleled and their concept of taxonomy decisive, if nothing else. The late
Ian Craven handed local hunters an illustrated guide to the birds and mammals of the Ar-
fak Mountains, west of the Fojas. They laughed and pointed excitedly at many of the species
found in their area but stared blankly at other common residents. Ian was puzzled at first: he
knew they had seen, and had a local name for, everything in the guide. As it turned out, the
hunters' binary taxonomy of approval or silence had little to do with presence versus absence
or common versus rare; rather, their classification hinged on the Kingdom of the Tasty and
the Kingdom of the Inedible.
Life in the fog and the burgeoning quagmire: Bruce and his team could add another dimen-
sion to the isolation they felt. Sometimes the mist was so thick that the upper Fojas became
their own world in the clouds. And then there were the incessant downpours. Bruce's field
notes took the voice of an adolescent sent to summer camp for the first time, trying to convey
his joy in the outdoors to his parents while simultaneously scaring the daylights out of them.
“Camp grows ever more horrific with continual rain and mud. Wear high rubber boots all day
every day. Forest is superb! Have added 12 new bird species to Foja list!”
Bruce's expedition was confirming the impression Jared Diamond had formed in 1979 on
his first visit—this was indeed a lost world. Every day brought a new natural history rev-
elation, as if Bruce had pinpointed with his GPS the lat-long of paradise for a naturalist.
The Fojas also offered a new perspective on seclusion. For exiles such as Alexander Selkirk,
Robinson Crusoe, and even Napoléon Bonaparte, a remote location was viewed as punish-
ment. But in the mountains of New Guinea, the tropical Andes, and the eastern Himalayas,
geologic events have led to the separation of populations and adaptive radiations. These phe-
nomena have bestowed upon the natural world a menagerie of rarities—birds and mammals
and plants and butterflies and beetles so extraordinary, gifts over evolutionary time of natural
isolation.
After two weeks, though, the expedition was drawing to a close. Food was running out,
and the hard-won research permit was about to expire. Bruce's diary: “4 Dec. The bog turns
