Dendrolagus pulcherrimus

Eldridge, Mark D. B., Potter, Sally, Pratt, Renae, Johnson, Rebecca N., Flannery, Tim F. & Helgen, Kristofer M., 2024, Molecular systematics of the Dendrolagus goodfellowi species group (Marsupialia: Macropodidae), Records of the Australian Museum 76 (2), pp. 105-129 : 120

Dendrolagus pulcherrimus

Flannery, 1993

Common name. Golden-mantled Tree-kangaroo, Weimang

Holotype. AM M.21717, adult female, skin and skull. Mt Sapau , near Sibilanga, Torricelli Mountains, Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea.

Paratypes. AM M.22173, unsexed, partial trophy skull. Parkop , near Sibilanga, Torricelli Mountains, Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea . AM M.23423, adult female, body in alcohol – now missing (Parnaby et al., 2017). Macholp area , Torricelli Mountains, Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea .

Other material examined. ANWC M38950 , adult female, skin and skull, from “Bog Camp”, Foja Mountains , West Papua . AM M.35029, AM M.38062: two sets of trophy jaws, purchased on 7 October 1992 at Pin-nai Village, 3 hours walk from Mokwam on the track to Jeu’te village in the Arfak Mountains , West Papua. The animals had been caught by Botor , brother of Benjamin of Jeu’te Village , on Gunung Minika , which lies to the west of Pin-nai. Botor had bad knees, so they may have been caught some time prior to the purchase, when Botor was more able .

Distribution. Disjunct populations in the Torricelli Range, Papua New Guinea, and the Foja Mountains and Vogelkop Peninsula, West Papua, Indonesia. It is recorded from mid-montane forest, 680–1700 m elevation ( Flannery et al., 1996).

In the North Coastal Ranges it is very rare, being restricted to the easternmost part of the Torricelli Mountains.Accounts collected from the oldest hunters in the Lumi area (men in their 80s) in the late 1980s–1990s confirm that as late as the 1930s it was present throughout the North Coastal Ranges. It has thus become extinct in around 95% of its distribution between the 1930s and 1990s ( Flannery et al., 1996). It is absent from the Mt Menawa block and the ranges adjacent to the Indonesian border in PNG, as well as the Cyclops Ranges north of Lake Sentani in West Papua.

In the Foja Mountains of West Papua, which are uninhabited by people at higher elevations, this species was first observed by Jared Diamond in 1981 ( Flannery, 1993; Diamond, 2021). In 2005, one of us (KMH) working with hunters from the village Kwerba, obtained a voucher specimen from 1500 m during a biological survey in the Foja Mountains (ANWC M38950) and sighted and camera trapped other individuals in these mountains in 2008.

On the Vogelkop Peninsula it is known only as a subfossil from the Ayamaru Lakes area ( Aplin et al., 1999) and from two trophy jaws (AM M.35029, AM M.38062) from the Arfak Mountains.

Description. Dendrolagus pulcherrimus can be distinguished from other members of the Goodfellow’s group by its striking colouration and markings: a pale golden yellow head and upper back, contrasting with dark reddish-brown body ( Fig. 6 ). Dark reddish-brown flanks becoming paler and more reddish dorsally; paler and more sparsely furred ventrally. Pale yellow to golden orange face, head, neck and upper back. A dark mid-dorsal stripe runs from the top of head to the lower back becoming broader and less defined distally. The ear margins are white. The upper limbs are also dark reddish brown but becoming paler on the paws and feet. A single hair whorl is present on the dorsal midline on the mid-lower back. Paired brownish-yellow stripes are present on the rump but are not as prominent as in D. goodfellowi . The tail is longer than the head/body ( Table 4) and a paler brown than the flanks. It is well covered with short hair, often paler ventrally and proximally, with variable mottling of pale yellow to white rings and blotches along its length ( Eldridge & Coulson, 2015).

Remarks. Listed as ‘Critically Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List (Leary et al., 2016b), however this could be reassessed now that a wider recent distribution has been documented. The species is poorly represented in museum collections and almost nothing is known of its biology. Dendrolagus pulcherrimus has been the major focus of a community-based conservation program in the Torricelli Mountains run by the Tenkile Conservation Alliance (Schwartz et al., 2021; TCA, 2023), and a focal species of the Foya Mamberamo Protected Area, including the Foja Mountains.

Figures

Figure 6. Comparison of pelage variation across taxa in the Goodfellow’s group. Left to right: D. g. buergersi (AM M.17213), D. g. goodfellowi (AM M D. matschiei (AM M.6062), and D. spadix (AM M.17212).