Fluffy-tailed creature — long thought to be locally extinct — found in Australia
Ecologists in Australia flipped through thousands of photos taken on trail cameras at a national park. They were looking for photos of an at-risk mouse species — but noticed several images of a fluffy-tailed creature.
It was an animal long thought to be locally extinct.
Ecologists with the New South Wales (NSW) threatened species team set up trail cameras throughout Kosciuszko National Park “to survey for the critically endangered smoky mouse,” the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage said in a June 1 news release.
The project resulted in “almost a million images,” but “seven seven photos taken over a 10-second period” stood out from the rest, officials said. These photos showed a tiny gray possum with a long, fuzzy tail.
Experts identified the animal as a Leadbeater’s possum, or Gymnobelideus leadbeateri, a critically endangered species “long believed to be extinct in NSW,” officials said.
“Until now, records show this species has only been detected alive in Victoria,” a state of southern Australia neighboring NSW, officials said. “In NSW, (the species) was previously known only from bones, believed to be up to 200 years old, that were discovered in caves near the recent detection site” at Kosciuszko National Park.
Leadbeater’s possums weigh just over 4 ounces and “live mostly in wet eucalypt forests in tree hollows as breeding pairs and family groups, meaning this individual must belong to a previously unknown population,” officials said.
The Biodiversity Council, an independent group of wildlife experts, shared another photo of the Leadbeater’s possum in a May 31 news release.
“It’s extraordinary to discover a species that was previously thought to be extinct in NSW,” Penny Sharpe, the state’s Minister for the Environment, said in the government release. “For ecologists to spot a needle in a haystack of millions of images speaks to their commitment to the conservation cause.”
Dan Harley, an ecologist involved in Leadbeater’s possum conservation, said in the council’s news release that “while the NSW discovery is exciting and quite unexpected, it in no way alters the species’ Critically Endangered status at this stage.”
Until recently, Leadbeater’s possums were found only in the state of Victoria and, as of June 2022, had an estimated population of “less than 40” animals, according to Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum.
NSW officials said they are reviewing “images from past surveys across Kosciuszko National Park” for more traces of Leadbeater’s possums, putting out more trail cameras and expediting the “conservation listing of the species.”
Kosciuszko National Park is in New South Wales, near the border with Victoria and a roughly 300-mile drive southwest from Sydney.
This story was originally published June 2, 2025 at 10:46 AM with the headline "Fluffy-tailed creature — long thought to be locally extinct — found in Australia."
