An trip across an unpredictable, treacherous mountain region in Indonesia's Papua province led to the rediscovery of a severely endangered egg-laying animal that had not been seen in more than 60 years.
For Expedition Cyclops researchers, Attenborough's long-beaked echidna — a strange-looking, quill-covered mammal with strong digging feet — represents the biodiversity that can be uncovered in Indonesia's Cyclops Mountains.
A 25-person team faced malaria and earthquakes on a nine-week trip, and one student researcher even got a leech lodged in their eye for 33 hours.
"Climbing those mountains I like to think of as climbing a ladder whose rungs are made of rotting wood,
with rails cladded in spikes and thorns, and a frame shrouded by sunken vines and falling rocks," said James Kempton, the team's commander.
For years, the less than 90-square-mile mountain region has been subjected to illicit hunting. It is the only home for the severely endangered Attenborough's long-beaked echidna,
which is included on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.
Kempton's team set up around 30 video traps to seek for the echidna, assuming it was nearby due to holes in the ground where the animal forages for worms. They eventually located it among the last photographs on the last SD card on the final day of the trip.