RAREST ANIMAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22489, 5 August 1936, Page 10

RAREST ANIMAL

SEARCH IN AUSTRALIA SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION [FROM OUR, OWN CORRESPONDENT] SYDNEY. July, 31 A party, including two members of the Australian Museum staff, Sydney, has left for central, north-west and north Australia to search for the world's rarest animal, the broad-nosed ral kangaroo. This animal was thought to be extinct until 1931, when a South Australian scientist obtained several live specimens in the "gibber" country c>f Central Australia. Outside of the British Museum, which obtained four specimens in 1843, only the South Australian Museum, Adelaide, has a collection of these animals. The party, which consists of Messrs. H. Fletcher, palaeontologist, W. Barnes, taxidermist, and L. Fletcher, of Alice Springs, will travel about 5000 miles iu two or three months. It will go in a motor-truck by way of Melbourne, Adelaide, Port Augusta, aud Alice Springs to Tennant Creek, Derby, Wyndhanv, and Darwin, and back through north-western Queensland to Brishane and Sydney. Messrs. Fletcher and Barnes will collect Ordovician fossils in the McDonnell Ranges and the East Kimberleys, and Cambrian fossils in known deposits in the Northern Territory and north-west Queensland. The Ordovician fossils are said to he at least 600,000,000 years old, and the Cambrian fossils 750,000,000 years old. These deposits are the oldest in Australia.

•Many valuable and interesting specimens have already found their way to the Australian Museum from the ancient beds, opened up some years ago. Visits will be paid to many mammal localities, from which only type specimens have been collected in the past, and Mr. Fletcher is hopeful that more rare species will be obtained for the museum.