Fig. 6.13.

Not all carnivorous marsupials collected from New Guinea required explorers to penetrate the dark interior. Indeed, the first such species described from New Guinea, Myoictis melas, was simply handed by local people to S. Müller and his delegation from the Natural Science Commission for the Netherlands Indies Co., who had shipped into port during 1828. The local people revealed to the visiting Europeans that the small marsupial lived in the forest on the ground, foraged mainly at night and was known to them as ‘Insinsie’. In 1840, Müller provided a cursory (undiagnostic) description in his report of the expedition and the species’ discovery is attributed to him. Source: Auscape.