The desert rat kangaroo is a lost species of Australian marsupial. It was last seen
83 years ago by scientist Hedley Herbert Finlayson in the Australian desert and today is thought to be extinct.
Since then, reports have emerged of people seeing a small kangaroo that fits the animal's description - the most recent being in 2011. No intensive survey has ever been mounted for it using modern camera trapping methods, and the species lacks a proper distribution and habitat model.
This team from the University of New England in Australia will deploy camera traps for 5 months and collect habitat data for this lost species. They will travel to Finlayson's original sites as well as the other locations of recent described sightings. They are led by mammal ecologist
Karl Vernes, who has published 80 peer-reviewed articles in mammal ecology, and PhD student
Todd, who is basically
a young science Hugh Jackman.
Follow this research team by funding the project, where they will be
sharing their progress in rediscovering this intriguing lost species.