Overview for Papua New Guinea
The island of New Guinea, of which Papua New Guinea is the
eastern part, is only one-ninth as big as Australia, yet it has just
as many mammal species, and more kinds of birds and frogs.
PNG is Australia’s biological mirror-world. Both places share
a common history going back tens of millions of years, but
Australia is fl at and has dried out, while PNG is wet and has
become mountainous. As a result, Australian kangaroos bound
across the plains, while in PNG they climb in the rainforest
canopy.
PNG is one of the earth’s mega diverse regions. The
mountainous terrain has spawned diversity in two ways:
isolated mountain ranges are often home to unique fauna and
flora found nowhere else, while within any one mountain range
you will fi nd different species as you go higher. In the
lowlands are jungles whose trees are not that different from
those of Southeast Asia. Yet the animals are often startlingly
different –cassowaries instead of tapirs, and marsupial cuscus
instead of monkeys. The greatest diversity of animal life
occurs at around 1500m above sea level. By the time you
have reached 3000m above sea level the forests are stunted
and wreathed in epiphytes. It’s a formation known as elfin
woodland, and in it one fi nds many bright honeyeaters, native
rodents and some unique relics of prehistory, such as the giant
long-beaked echidna. Above the elfi n woodland the trees
drop out, and a wonderland of alpine grassland and herbfield
dominates, where wallabies and tiny birds, like the alpine
robin, can often be seen. It is a place where snow can fall and
where early morning ice coats the puddles.