In November 2023, Mongabay reported on an expedition in which researchers partnered with Indigenous communities and government agencies in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains to capture camera-trap images of what was previously thought to be a “lost” species: Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, the world’s rarest egg-laying mammal. Those findings have now been confirmed in a new study.
Listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi) is one of five species that are monotremes, the only group of living mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young.
The echidna was first described as a new species in 1998 using a specimen collected in 1961 on the Cyclops Mountains, along Indonesia’s border with Papua New Guinea on the island of New Guinea, where the Yongsu Sapari and Yongsu Dosoyo communities live. The echidna was named in honor of famed naturalist David Attenborough; the communities call it payangko.
Since 1961, the echidna remained scientifically undocumented for 62 years, until researchers in 2007 found indirect traces of it in the Cyclops Mountains. Meanwhile, Indigenous communities in the region reported seeing the elusive species through the decades.
Relying on this Indigenous knowledge, a team of researchers deployed camera traps in the Cyclops from 2022-2023: the team received the Indigenous groups’ blessing to enter sacred areas and guidance on where to place camera traps and find the species.
“We would not have succeeded without their support and input,” Malcolm Kobak, study co-author from local NGO YAPPENDA, told Mongabay by email.
By 2023, the cameras had captured 110 photos and 15 videos that researchers confirmed were of Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna. Some footage even showed one individual following closely on the heels of another, suggesting courtship.
Co-author James Kempton, from the University of Oxford, U.K., told Mongabay by email that this was “encouraging evidence that the population is breeding.”
Today, Z. attenboroughi likely only exists in the Cyclops, but subfossil evidence suggest it used to occur on another mountain range, the team found.
“It is also important to note that the population used to exist in the Oenake Mountains in Papua New Guinea but appears to have been hunted to extinction,” Kempton said. “Its persistence in the Cyclops Mountains might reflect something to do with more sustainable Indigenous hunting and land management practices in the Cyclops, especially on the northern slopes.”
The researchers write that this underscores the need to recognize Indigenous and local knowledge “not as an ancillary resource but as a fundamental and complex backdrop to developing a conservation strategy for Z. attenboroughi and the Cyclops Mountains.”
Both Kempton and Kobak said there’s limited financing, conservation and biodiversity research in the Indonesian half of New Guinea, and that they hope the study will help attract support for additional research. Study lead Gison Morib of YAPPENDA is continuing research in the field to better understand the species.
Banner image of Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, courtesy of Morib et al., 2025.
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