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# Two Marsupials the Ice Age Was Supposed to Have Killed Are Alive in New Guinea
- URL: https://www.gottabekidding.me/two-marsupials-the-ice-age-was-supposed-to-have-killed-are-alive-in-new-guinea/
- Published: 2026-08-26T10:02:29.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-26T10:02:28.000Z
- Description: Fossils said these two species died out thousands of years ago. Local communities never stopped saying otherwise, and it turns out they were right.
- Author: Field Notes
- Tags: Nature

Deep in the rainforests of New Guinea's Vogelkop Peninsula, researchers have confirmed two marsupial species very much alive: the pygmy long-fingered possum (*Dactylonax kambuayai*) and the ring-tailed glider (*Tous ayamaruensis*), both believed lost for roughly 6,000 years. Not misplaced. Not underfunded. Gone. Extinct. Filed under: the Ice Age took them.

It did not.

Until now, researchers knew these species only through fossil fragments and Indigenous stories. The pygmy long-fingered possum appears to have retreated from Australia during the Ice Age, the same geological epoch that claimed the diprotodon and the marsupial lion, and apparently forgot to inform anyone.

The possum itself is worth pausing on: boldly striped, with one digit on each hand that is twice the length of the next longest finger. That sounds like something a kid invented. It is in fact a real and documented adaptation. The ring-tailed glider, meanwhile, is the nearest living relative of the Australian greater glider and represents the first new genus of New Guinean marsupial described since 1937.

Both species are considered hyper-vulnerable, with populations likely restricted to tiny pockets of forest where even minor habitat loss could wipe them out completely. Researchers are keeping exact habitat locations confidential. The discoveries also validate Indigenous knowledge: the Maybrat and Tambrauw peoples have long known about and protected these animals while Western science had written them off as extinct.

The taxonomy is still being sorted. The survival mechanism is still unknown. Nothing about this is tidy.

The Ice Age had 6,000 years to finish the job. It didn't.

**Read the full story at** [Popular Mechanics, July 28, 2026](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a73257657/lost-marsupials/?ref=gottabekidding.me)

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**Hot Take:** Western science filed these two species under "deceased" for 6,000 years while the neighbors kept updating their address instead. The paperwork was overdue for a correction.