Surfbirds News

The researchers also located of the home of Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise. On the second day of the team's expedition, the stunned scientists watched as a male Berlepsch's bird of paradise performed a mating dance for an attending female in the field camp. It was the first time a live male of the species had been observed by Western scientists, and proved that the Foja Mountains was the species' true home. "This bird had been filed away and forgotten; it had been lost. To rediscover it was, for me, in some ways, more exciting than finding the honeyeater. I spent 20 years working on birds of paradise; they're pretty darn sexy beasts," Dr Beehler enthused

The team also recorded a golden-mantled tree kangaroo, which was previously thought to have been hunted to near-extinction.

A summary of the team's main discoveries:

A new species of honeyeater, the first new bird species discovered on the island of New Guinea since 1939

The formerly unknown breeding grounds of a "lost" bird of paradise - the six-wired bird of paradise (Parotia berlepschi

First photographs of the golden-fronted bowerbird displaying at its bower.

A new large mammal for Indonesia, the golden-mantled tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus pulcherrimus.

More than 20 new species of frogs, including a tiny microhylid frog less than 14mm long

A series of previously undescribed plant species, including five new species of palms

A remarkable white-flowered rhododendron with flower about 15cm across

Four new butterfly species.