'Walking Shark' Among 50 New Marine Species Found Off Indonesia's Papua Province

Two recent expeditions led by Conservation International (CI) to the heart of Asia's "Coral Triangle" discovered dozens of new species of marine life including epaulette sharks, "flasher" wrasse and reef-building coral, confirming the region as the Earth's richest seascape.

The unmatched marine biodiversity of the Bird's Head Seascape, named for the shape of the distinctive peninsula on the northwestern end of Indonesia's Papua province, includes more than 1,200 species of fish and almost 600 species of reef-building (scleractinian) coral, or 75 percent of the world's known total.

Researchers described an underwater world of visual wonders, such as the small epaulette shark that "walks" on its fins and colorful schools of reef fish populating abundant and healthy corals of all shapes and sizes.

Threats from over-fishing with dynamite and cyanide, as well as deforestation and mining that degrade coastal waters, require immediate steps to protect the unique marine life that sustains local communities. The seascape's central location in the Coral Triangle of the Pacific, which exports and maintains biodiversity in the entire Indo-Pacific marine realm, makes it one of the planet's most urgent marine conservation priorities.

"These Papuan reefs are literally 'species factories' that require special attention to protect them from unsustainable fisheries and other threats so they can continue to benefit their local owners and the global community," said Mark Erdmann, senior adviser of CI's Indonesian Marine Program, who led the surveys. "Six of our survey sites, which are areas the size of two football fields, had over 250 species of reef-building coral each - that's more than four times the number of coral species of the entire Caribbean Sea."

Though human population density in the region is low, the coastal people of the Bird's Head peninsula are heavily dependent on the sea for their livelihoods - which now are under threat from a plan to transfer fishing pressures from Indonesia's over-fished western seas to the east toward Papua province.

"The coastal villages we surveyed were mostly engaged in subsistence fishing, farming and gathering, and they require healthy marine ecosystems to survive," said Paulus Boli, a State University of Papua researcher led the socioeconomic component of the expeditions. "We are very concerned about the potential impact of planned commercial fisheries expansion in the region, and we urge a precautionary approach that emphasizes sustainability over intensive exploitation."

The two Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) surveys earlier this year, along with a third expedition in 2001, studied waters surrounding Papua province from Teluk Cenderawasih in the north to the Raja Ampat archipelago off the western coast and southeast to the FakFak-Kaimana coastline. A few hundred kilometers inland are Papua's Foja Mountains, where a team led by CI and the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) last year discovered a virtual "Lost World" of new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and other wildlife.

Off the coast, researchers found more than 50 species of fish, coral and mantis shrimp previously unknown to science in the Bird's Head Seascape that covers 18 million hectares, including 2,500 islands and submerged reefs. The seascape also includes the largest Pacific leatherback turtle nesting area in the world, and migratory populations of sperm and Bryde's whales, orcas and several dolphin species.

"We're thankful to the Ministry of Forestry and CI for the significant data from these surveys, and we are excited to be planning further surveys in 2007 to fill in remaining data gaps that will help us plan the most effective management possible for this exceedingly crucial area," said Dr. Suharsono, head of LIPI's Oceanography Center.

Only 11 percent of the seascape is currently protected, most of it in the Teluk Cenderawasih National Park that is supported by the World Wide Fund for Nature-Indonesia (WWF-Indonesia). Results of the CI-led surveys highlight the need for a well-managed network of multiple-use Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to conserve the seascape's biodiversity and ensure the long-term sustainability of commercial and subsistence fishing.

Partners in the two 2006 surveys funded by the Walton Family Foundation included the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry's Department of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation and its local offices in Papua; Teluk Cenderawasih National Park Authority, the State University of Papua, and WWF-Indonesia.

A brightly plumaged parrot and a long-tailed forest mouse unique to the country have been discovered in the vanishing rain forest of Camiguin Island, US-based researchers said yesterday.

Camiguin, a volcanic island in northern Mindanao, is a treasure trove of fauna, and already had endemic species of rodents and frogs before the discovery of the rusty brown mouse and the green hanging parrot, known among locals as "Colasisi."

But Camiguin's wildlife is at risk from deforestation, warned researchers, writing in the April 5 issue "Fieldiana: Zoology," a peer-reviewed, scientific journal about biodiversity research published by the Chicago-based Field Museum of Natural History.

"Knowing that at least 54 species of birds and at least 24 species of mammals live on Camiguin and that some of these animals are found nowhere

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else on earth, makes us realize how important this island is," said Lawrence Heaney, curator of mammals at the Field Museum and coauthor of several of the reports in the publication.

"For these animals to survive, we've got to save the dwindling forests where they live," he said in a press release issued by the museum.

Severely deforested

Blas Tabaranza Jr., director of the Terrestrial Ecosystems Project of the Haribon Foundation in Manila, said the Philippines was increasingly recognized as a global center for biodiversity, with exceptionally high levels of endemism or the state of being restricted to or peculiar to a locality or region.

"Unfortunately, the Philippines has also vaulted into notoriety as one of the most severely deforested tropical countries in the world," Tabaranza, a co-author of several of the Fieldiana reports, said in the press release.

The Philippines hosts a wealth of endemic flora and fauna but more than 70 percent of its original forests have been destroyed.

Camiguin was once almost entirely covered by rain forest but by 2001, logging, agriculture and human settlement had reduced the forest cover to only 18 percent. Half of the island, a popular diving destination, is covered with coconut plantations.

Conservation priority

The scientists have declared Camiguin's rain forest to be a key global conservation priority. Efforts to protect the remaining rain forest in which these animals live as a national park have been under way for several years, in collaboration between The Field Museum, Haribon Foundation, the local government and the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The two new species were discovered as the result of recent and earlier field studies.

The new species of parrot was known to locals because of its value in the pet trade. The bird's throat and thighs are bright blue and the top of its head and tail are brilliant scarlet-orange.

Males and females have identical plumage, which is quite unusual in this group of parrot.

The description is based on previously unstudied specimens in The Field Museum and the Delaware Museum of Natural History collected in the 1960s by D.S. Rabor. The name for the new species is Loriculus camiguinensis, or Camiguin Hanging-parrot.

Distinctive

"This description is based on a series of specimens that had been part of The Field Museum's collections for almost 40 years, so our work highlights the value of collecting and preserving scientific specimens, because you may not initially realize the significance of specimens," said John Bates, curator of birds and chair of zoology at The Field Museum, and a co-author of one of the Fieldiana reports.

"If we did not have a series of specimens from Camiguin and additional series of Hanging-parrots from other Philippine islands, we probably would have assumed that the single bird that prompted our investigation was just odd-looking, and we would not have been able to recognize it as distinctive," Bates said.

Overlooked

One of L. camiguinensis' characteristics that was key to identifying it as a new species is the fact that its plumage is relatively dull compared to other Philippine hanging-parrots.

This is consistent with the documented tendency of some isolated bird populations to lose their bright plumage, the authors noted.

Because L. camiguinensis has not been recognized as a separate species, little is known about its habits, and it has been overlooked in terms of conservation. The discovery has spurred interest in the field studies needed to establish the population size and requirements as a prerequisite for conservation planning and action.

After learning about the Fieldiana manuscript, Thomas Arndt, a German parrot enthusiast, made a trip to Camiguin to look for these birds. He photographed the parrots and was preparing a publication about his findings.

New even to locale

The mouse, discovered high on the steep slopes of one of the island's volcanoes, was new to locals.

The rusty-brown rodent, known as Apomys camiguinensis, has large eyes and ears and feeds mostly on insects and seeds.

The description is based on mice captured on Camiguin during a biological survey Heaney and Tabaranza conducted in 1994 and 1995.

In 2002, Heaney, Tabaranza and Eric Rickart, of the Utah Museum of Natural History, described a different species of forest-living rodent, Bullimus gamay, from Mt. Timpoong, the same mountain where the new mouse was collected.

A frog (Oreophryne nana) named in 1967 had been thought to be the only vertebrate restricted to the island prior to the surveys by Heaney and Tabaranza.

Deserves int'l attention

"Very few states in the United States, and few countries in Europe, have four endemic species of vertebrates, making it clear why tiny Camiguin Island is deserving of international attention," Heaney said.

"And it is almost certain that other organisms in Camiguin are also endemic; they just have not been studied yet."

Camiguin is only 265 square kilometers. It has been continuously isolated from its neighbors, even during the Ice Age of the Pleistocene, when sea levels dropped 120 meters below present levels. This isolation contributed to the differentiation of the island's animals. With a report from Inquirer wires