Two marsupial species thought long extinct, until now known only from fossils, were found alive in New Guinea through a collaboration of scientists, indigenous communities and citizen scientists. The discovery of the pygmy long-fingered possum and the ring-tailed glider marks the first confirmation of live specimens in over 7,000 years, the Bishop Museum, a natural history museum in Honolulu, announced. The two animals are known as “Lazarus species,” a term for organisms that reappear after being thought to be extinct. “The discovery of two Lazarus species, thought to be extinct for millennia, is unprecedented,” said Australian Museum’s Dr. Tim Flannery in the press release 👇🏻⬇️more in the 1rst comments ⬇️👇🏻.

Two marsupial species thought long extinct, until now known only from fossils, were found alive in New Guinea through a collaboration of scientists, indigenous communities and citizen scientists. The discovery of the pygmy long-fingered possum and the ring-tailed glider marks the first confirmation of live specimens in over 7,000 years, the Bishop Museum, a natural history museum in Honolulu, announced. The two animals are known as “Lazarus species,” a term for organisms that reappear after being thought to be extinct. “The discovery of two Lazarus species, thought to be extinct for millennia, is unprecedented,” said Australian Museum’s Dr. Tim Flannery in the press release 👇🏻⬇️more in the 1rst comments ⬇️👇🏻.

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Helgen and the Australian Museum’s Dr. Tim Flannery, who both research mammalian species in New Guinea, worked over the past two years to prove the existence of these animals.

The two animals are known as “Lazarus species,” a term for organisms that reappear after being thought to be extinct. “The discovery of two Lazarus species, thought to be extinct for millennia, is unprecedented,” Flannery in the press release.

To Helgen, the rediscovery of these species is proof that “extinction can be averted.”

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