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Queen Alexandra's birdwing
photo: WWF-Canon / Wolfgang VON SCHMIEDER |
Biodiversity
New Guinea's forests harbor as many as 11,000 species of plants, about 60 percent of which are found only in here. Home to the world's largest butterfly, Queen Alexandra's birdwing, these forests also contain 76 bird species that are found nowhere else on Earth. Among them are most of the world's spectacular birds of paradise. Fifty-six mammal species -- including Doria's and Goodfellow's tree kangaroos and the Papuan forest wallaby -- live only in these forests. There are also 365 species of fish, amphibians, and reptiles that are unique to New Guinea.
Did You Know?
Fewer than 200 Bulmer's fruit bats remain, and they all live in a single cave in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Despite protection from native peoples, the cave has been raided by hunters in the past, to the point that this species was once feared to be extinct.
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While New Guinea not usually associated with grasslands and flooded savannas, this island carpeted in lush rainforests is also flanked along its south coast by important monsoonal savannas and forests. Open acacia woodlands, grasslands and melaleuca swamps extend across a broad area from the Digul River in Papua Province (Indonesia) to the Fly River mouth in Papua New Guinea. The TransFly Grasslands and Savannas ecoregion cover approximately 6 million acres on the New Guinea south coast straddling the PNG and Indonesia border. While the remainder of PNG has rugged topography from intense tectonic activity, the southern Fly platform is remarkably flat.
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