A scientific expedition has uncovered an array of never-before-seen creatures in a “magical lost world” — a small and untouched patch of rainforest hidden between enormous granite boulders 200 miles north of Cairns in Queensland.
On just the second day of a four-day trek to Cape Melville a team led by Dr Conrad Hoskin, from James Cook University, and Dr Tim Laman, from Harvard University, discovered a “bizarre” looking leaf-tailed gecko, a golden-coloured skink and a boulder-dwelling frog — species that have been isolated from their closest cousins for millions of years.
“We’re talking about animals that are ancient — they would have been around in the rainforest of Gondwana… rainforest that’s been there for all time,” said Dr Hoskin.
Accessible only by helicopter, the upland plateau area is a 1.8 by 1.8 mile patch which sits on a “monstrous wall” of “millions of giant, piled up boulders the size of houses and cars”. The range is around nine miles long and three wide.
Source: Flynn Murphy, The Telegraph
