Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The New Species


I bet when Captain James Cook set off across the oceans from Whitby it was a piece of piss to come back with recorded data of new species in such exotic places as New Zealand, Australia, Asia and North Asia and the Pacific Islands.

But these days I would have thought it would be close to impossible to find a new species, never mind dozens of them. That’s what has just happened in Papua New Guineau. Doesn’t surprise me it happened there. I have a friend who has now been working in PNG for 5 years. One of her first weeks there the village she was staying in was attacked by a neighbouring cannibal tribe.
The intention of this tribe was to eat the two tasty looking Europeans ladies who were there teaching English and the ‘Holy Book’. If it wasn’t for the protectiveness of the non-cannibal tribe they were staying with it would have been an interesting new Limburgse Hutspot (Stew) that was served that day.

So thanks to Dr Bruce Beehler and his trusty crew we have some new beasts to marvel at on this planet. They reckon there is still a lot more to discover on this planet but I bet they don’t ever come in such abundance as this trip.










































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