The Kingdom of Rarities Read Online Free PDF

only a modest number of endemic plants. Also, the few islands in the archipelago are too close to one another to isolate populations. The fauna and flora of nearshore oceanic islands, such as those in the Gulf of California, often tend to look quite similar to those on the mainland. They are within easy reach of mainland species that can fly or raft over on floating vegetation or whose seeds arrive on the winds. Habitat diversity also plays a key role in the amount of speciation that takes place. Like New Guinea, some of the most ecologically diverse islands—such as New Caledonia and Madagascar—are covered in mountain chains or bisected by plateaus. The resulting rain shadow creates wet forests on the island’s windward side and dry forests on its leeward side, the different habitats favoring different species.
    New Guinea not only embodies areas of exceptional isolation conducive to speciation. Much of the island has another quality that makes it an ideal natural laboratory for the study of rarity and abundance—remote mountain ranges marked by the virtual absence of human interference. Today, natural patterns of rarity and abundance on virtually all equatorial islands have become increasingly obscured by the destructive spread of invasive species—goats, cattle, pigs, cats, dogs, rats, rabbits—and by the logging of native forests, conversion of cutover land to agriculture, and other forms of development and exploitation that have followed the arrival of humans.
    A scientist in New Guinea, in contrast, can still observe the interplay of geology, evolution, and rarity in an all but undisturbed venue. The mountain walls, deep gorges, and numerous rivers create barriers that prevent recently arrived species from spreading and swamping the local biota. Some of the high ranges even check the spread of humans. New Guinea is about twice the size of California but remains sparsely populated. With so few people—about 7 million inhabitants—and so much forest and rugged terrain, there may even be places where people have never set foot.
    Among wild destinations, New Guinea surpasses all others as an outpost of mysterious dimensions. The lack of roads and few airstrips limit access to its isolated valleys. Flights into the mistcloaked mountains are fraught with danger. In 1991, an up-and-coming field biologist and a colleague, Ian Craven, perished when his single-engine bush plane crashed in the island’s far western wilderness. Then there is the famous disappearance of anthropologist Michael Rockefeller about fifty years ago somewhere on the southern coast. Explorers of New Guinea know the risks and the challenges: avoiding deadly strains of malaria; living on tinned mackerel and navy biscuits; not getting lost in the uncharted forest; and not getting eaten. The highlands are known for their fierce mountain clans who wage ritualized war with neighboring groups and occasionally dine on one another.
    Then there are the rewards. On my first trip, in 1990, I carried along a copy of
Birds of New Guinea
by Bruce Beehler and Thane Pratt. The pages of the bird guide and Dale Zimmerman’s illustrations came to life when I saw and heard my first magnificent riflebird, a bird of paradise, in a park outside the capital. Upon my return, I finally met Bruce, and discovery of our mutual interests in New Guinea’s unique flora and fauna led to more frequent contact. I grew envious listening to his stories about what he had observed—the birds of paradise, cassowaries, bowerbirds, giant fruit bats, tree kangaroos—and his biological surveys into the most remote region of the planet.

    The island of New Guinea is especially interesting to biologists because so many of its species are found nowhere else. New Guinea itself is politically divided—the western portion is Papua (formerly Irian Jaya), a province of Indonesia, and the eastern half is the sovereign nation of Papua New Guinea, or PNG