Papua New Guinea: Tree Kangaroos
Tree Kangaroos are for the most part endemic to only Papua New Guinea (there are two species in northern Queensland in Australia). They inhabit forests and have well adapted to climbing trees. Evolutionary they are closer to possums then the jumping kangaroos. They somewhat look like small herbivore bears with long tails and long claws to climb trees. There are 12 species in the entire Papua New Guinea and 2 in the Highlands (I got to see both – one completely brown and another with white front). They spent most of their life in the tree tops in the mountains. Sadly, they are still actively hunted in the wild and spotting one is hard as their are timid and elusive. But the villagers in Hagen and Tari respectively bought baby wild tree kangaroos from hunters and reared them up hoping that an occasional white tourist may be interested to look at them. Needless to say, I spent hours watching these guys gorge on ferns and banana leaves.
