Scientists Find New Species In Remote New Guinea

An anonymous reader writes "A team of scientists exploring an isolated jungle in one of Indonesia's most remote provinces said they discovered dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants as well as large mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere. The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans during their rapid assessment survey of the Foja Mountains, which has more than two million acres of old growth tropical forest."

Comments

So tell us.

[falzer]

How do they taste?

How do YOU taste

[Mrs. Grundy]

If you read the article you may have notice the passing reference to the giant cassowary. It's basically a four foot chicken with a bad temper and a crazy look in its eye who can use its razor-sharp talons to disembowel a man where he stands. That's right, this is one of the last remaining birds that can easily kill a person and while it's not a man-eater, I'm sure there are plenty of other animals in the jungle that would be happy to let the cassowary play the butcher and carve you up like a holiday ham for their culinary delight. So before you start wondering about what kind of wine to server with tree kangaroo, you might first stop to ask yourself, how do you taste.

Re:How do YOU taste

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, like pork.

You may recall that the South Sea islanders who enjoyed a little cannibalism refered to man as 'long pig'. They may still do so, for all I know.

And the pig has very similar body structures to ourselves - so much so that pig heart valves were once used for organ transplants (and may still be, for all I know).

But the cincher for me was an experience while welding in the kitchen (as you do...). When you hit rust you get a shower of sparks, and one minute globule of molten metal hit me on an unprotected tbumb. It was very small, but white hot, and burnt straight through my skin before stopping. I put my thumb in my mouth (reflex action) and was rewarded with a strong taste of pork crackling. Under a glass, the edges of the wound looked exactly like the skin on a pork roast.

So /. has now had a post from an auto-cannibal. And if this doesn't get modded informative, I'll eat my ......

Re:pictures?

[phyl0x]

First pics

New species are nothing new

[stunt_penguin]

It's not that hard to find a new species- walk into any isolated forested region on earth and before you know it you'll be batting away unclassified insects, hacking your way through undiscovered shrubs, and if you're really unlucky, being poisoned by some new snake venom or frog toxin. People should realise that we really don't know shit about what's in the rainforests of the Amazon, never mind Papua New Guinea.

This is, however an excellent discovery, and I don't mean to just dismiss the achievements of the scientists involved- I just want to point out that there are thousands of types of plants and animals out there that we haven't classified yet.