Leaf-tail gecko. Photograph by Conrad Hoskin
Scientists on an expedition to a remote part of north-eatern Australia have uncovered three new species of vertebrates – a leaf-tail gecko, a golden-coloured skink, and a blotched boulder frog.
Dr Conrad Hoskin from James Cook University and a team from National Geographic had to be dropped by helicopter onto the Cape Melville mountain range on the Cape York Peninsula, and were amazed by the “Lost World” they encountered in a place that has been essentially isolated for millions of years.
Whilst previous surveys had studied the boulder fields around the base of Cape Melville, the rugged mountain range with huge black granite boulders had meant that the rainforest on top was still largely unexplored.
Speaking on the discoveries Dr Hoskin said:
Finding three new, obviously distinct vertebrates would be surprising enough in somewhere poorly explored like New Guinea, let alone in Australia, a country we think we’ve explored pretty well…These species are restricted to the upland rainforest and boulder-fields of Cape Melville. They’ve been isolated there for millennia, evolving into distinct species in their unique rocky environment
