The wondiwoi was spotted by an expedition led by amateur botanist Michael White, who spends vacations looking for rare flora:
The Wondiwoi tree kangaroo had not been collected, seen, or reported since that first sighting [in 1928].
Despite weighing up to 35 pounds, tree kangaroos are remarkably cryptic, often remaining totally hidden high in the forest canopy. On one of the final days of their expedition, having had no luck spotting one, the crew started to head down.
That was when the hunter “spotted a kangaroo 30 meters [90 feet] up,” Smith says. “After a lot of scrambling around trying to get my lens to focus on the animal peeking out from behind the leaves, I got a few half-decent shots.” “It is one of the most poorly known mammals in the world,” says Mark Eldridge, a marsupial biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney.John Pickrell, “Rare Tree Kangaroo Reappears After Vanishing for 90 Years” at National Geographic
Remember: It’s always in the last place you look.
Note: The 1928 specimen was shot by Ernst Mayr, an early twentieth-century Darwinian.
Follow UD News at Twitter!
See also: Extinction (or maybe not): New Scientist offers five “Lazarus species”
and
Extinction: When evolution is suddenly found to have a purpose The Darwinism taken for granted in evolutionary biology today is almost the worst place to begin to discuss preventing habitat loss and thus extinctions. Everything the Darwinist says when he discusses what he really believes would be a disincentive to action.
Tree kangaroos in general: