SEAVR 2016: 16-18
ISSN : 2424-8525
Date of publication: 8 January 2016.
Hosted online by ecologyasia.com

Papuan Forest Wallaby Dorcopsulus macleayi fromMoro, Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea
Nick BAKER
nbaker @ ecologyasia.com
Observer: Nick Baker.
Photographs by: Nick Baker.
Subject identified by: Jeffrey Saina (WWF-PNG).
Comment: The island of New Guinea is considered to lie outside the geographic area typically referred to as 'Southeast
Asia' : the western half of the island is part of Indonesia, and the eastern half is part of Papua New Guinea.
Location: 10 km southwest of Moro Airfield, Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea.
(Lat 06° 26.332'S, Long 143° 11.185'E)
Elevation: 1150 metres
Habitat: Primary, lower montane forest on karst limestone.
Date and time: 30 June 2009, 19:28 hrs
Identity of subject: Papuan Forest Wallaby (or Macleay's Dorcopsis, Papuan Dorcopsis) Dorcopsulus macleayi(Mammalia: Diprotodontia: Macropodidae).
Description of observation: One female observed at night, at the edge of a quiet, unlit, unsealed, oilfield service road.
Upon being disturbed it climbed the steep road cutting, paused briefly (Fig. 1) and retreated into the forest (Fig. 2).
Remarks: Wallabies of the genus Dorcopsulus are small, with a mean adult weight of around 3 kg. There appear to
be few photographs in the wild of Dorcopsulus macleayi, which is a nocturnal, forest specialist. It is rarely seen by
the casual observer, but native subsistence hunters would be familiar with the species.
Earlier researchers considered Dorcopsulus macleayi to be a subspecies of Dorcopsulus vanheurni. Flannery (1995)
and Groves (2005) treat the two as separate species, the former stating : "(Dorcopsulus macleayi) differs externallyfrom Dorcopsulus vanheurni in having approximately two-thirds to three-quarters (rather than one-half) of the tailfurred". Less than half the tail in this specimen from Southern Highlands Province (S.H.P.) lacks fur (see Fig. 3.),and it is on this basis that it is identified as Dorcopsulus macleayi. The subject also has a dense, dark brown toblackish pelage typical of the species. The extreme tip of the tail of this example is pinkish-white.
The subject was found at an elevation of 1150 metres, which accords with an altitudinal range of 1000 to 1800
metres for the species (Flannery, 1995). Its location, near Moro in S.H.P, is 170 km further west than Mount
Karimui, Chimbu Province, which in 1995 was thought to be the westernmost location for the species. Prior to this2009 find the species had "recently been confirmed from Mount Bosavi" (J. Saina, pers. comm.), the summit ofwhich lies 50 km to the southwest of Moro.
Fig. 4 illustrates the local habitat which comprises limestone mountains, with dense, constantly wet and humid,primary, lower montane forest. The forest floor is complex in character, with numerous overgrown fissures andsmall sinkholes, and is dominated by dense leaf litter, thick undergrowth and moss-covered fallen branches.
References:Flannery, T. F. (1995). The Mammals of New Guinea, 2nd edition. Reed Books, Sydney, Australia. 568 pp.
Groves, C. P. (2005). Order Diprotodontia. In: D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder (eds), Mammal Species of the World,
43-70. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. 2142 pp.

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Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

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Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.
© All photographs by Nick Baker

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