page_title: Papua New Guinea
section_title: Ecology
hierarchical_section_title: Papua New Guinea / Geography / Ecology
caption_attribution_description: English: Mount Tavurvur, a part of the Rabaul caldera volcano, in Papua New Guinea. Français&#160;: Le mont Tavurvur, un évent du volcan Rabaul, en Nouvelle-Bretagne (Papouasie-Nouvelle Guinée). Русский: Вулкан Тавурвур в Папуа — Новой Гвинее
context_page_description: Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a sovereign state in Oceania that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua. It is the world's third largest island country with 462,840 km².
  Papua New Guinea became a colony of Germany and the United Kingdom at the end of the 19th century and was then administered by Australia until 1975 when Papua New Guinea became a sovereign state. It is an independent Commonwealth realm with Elizabeth II as its queen, and is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
  Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. As of 2019, it is also the most rural, as only 13.25% of its people live in urban centres. There are 840 known living languages in the country. Most of the population of more than 8 million people lives in customary communities, which are as diverse as the languages.
context_section_description: Papua New Guinea is part of the Australasian realm, which also includes Australia, New Zealand, eastern Indonesia, and several Pacific island groups, including the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
  Geologically, the island of New Guinea is a northern extension of the Indo-Australian tectonic plate, forming part of a single land mass which is Australia-New Guinea (also called Sahul or Meganesia). It is connected to the Australian segment by a shallow continental shelf across the Torres Strait, which in former ages lay exposed as a land bridge, particularly during ice ages when sea levels were lower than at present.
  Consequently, many species of birds and mammals found on New Guinea have close genetic links with corresponding species found in Australia. One notable feature in common for the two landmasses is the existence of several species of marsupial mammals, including some kangaroos and possums, which are not found elsewhere. Papua New Guinea is a megadiverse country.
  Many of the other islands within PNG territory, including New Britain, New Ireland, Bougainville, the Admiralty Islands, the Trobriand Islands, and the Louisiade Archipelago, were never linked to New Guinea by land bridges. As a consequence, they have their own flora and fauna; in particular, they lack many of the land mammals and flightless birds that are common to New Guinea and Australia.
  Australia and New Guinea are portions of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, which started to break into smaller continents in the Cretaceous period, 65–130 million years ago. Australia finally broke free from Antarctica about 45 million years ago. All the Australasian lands are home to the Antarctic flora, descended from the flora of southern Gondwana, including the coniferous podocarps and Araucaria pines, and the broad-leafed southern beech (Nothofagus). These plant families are still present in Papua New Guinea.
  As the Indo-Australian Plate (which includes landmasses of India, Australia, and the Indian Ocean floor in between) drifts north, it collides with the Eurasian Plate. The collision of the two plates pushed up the Himalayas, the Indonesian islands, and New Guinea's Central Range. The Central Range is much younger and higher than the mountains of Australia, so high that it is home to rare equatorial glaciers. New Guinea is part of the humid tropics, and many Indomalayan rainforest plants spread across the narrow straits from Asia, mixing together with the old Australian and Antarctic floras.
  PNG includes a number of terrestrial ecoregions:
  Admiralty Islands lowland rain forests – forested islands to the north of the mainland, home to a distinct flora.
  Central Range montane rain forests 
  Huon Peninsula montane rain forests
  Louisiade Archipelago rain forests
  New Britain-New Ireland lowland rain forests
  New Britain-New Ireland montane rain forests
  New Guinea mangroves
  Northern New Guinea lowland rain and freshwater swamp forests
  Northern New Guinea montane rain forests
  Solomon Islands rain forests (includes Bougainville Island and Buka)
  Southeastern Papuan rain forests
  Southern New Guinea freshwater swamp forests
  Southern New Guinea lowland rain forests
  Trobriand Islands rain forests
  Trans-Fly savanna and grasslands
  Central Range sub-alpine grasslands
  Three new species of mammals were discovered in the forests of Papua New Guinea by an Australian-led expedition. A small wallaby, a large-eared mouse and shrew-like marsupial were discovered. The expedition was also successful in capturing photographs and video footage of some other rare animals such as the Tenkile tree kangaroo and the Weimang tree kangaroo.
caption: Mount Tavurvur
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