Living Treasure
Scientists get a rare look at an enigmatic creature
By LISA CLAUSEN

The two schoolboys brought their find to headmaster Peter McLennan in an aluminum mug. None of them had ever seen anything like it: a tiny eyeless animal with golden fur and a stumpy tail. One of the boys had caught it on Aug. 3 as it burrowed into a sand dune near the remote Aboriginal community of Punmu, 600 km southeast of Port Hedland in Western Australia's Rudall River National Park. McLennan got on the phone and soon had an answer: the 10-cm-long mammal was a rare marsupial mole, long sought by scientists and among Australia's most mysterious creatures.

Australia is the exclusive home of the world's only two known marsupial mole species, Notoryctes caurinus and Notoryctes typhlops. Although both are considered endangered, no one knows how many survive. The few moles captured this century were killed for their soft fur or died in captivity before they could be studied. Unlike European moles, the Australian marsupial moles fill their burrows behind them as they scurry through dunes in the deserts of W.A., the Northern Territory and South Australia. That makes them extremely difficult to find. "I've walked hundreds of kilometers around the dunes looking for them and I could have walked over thousands of moles," says University of W.A. physiologist Philip Withers, part of a team that sent posters to remote desert communities like Punmu two years ago, asking for help in finding a live specimen.

The 38-g N. caurinus found at Punmu will give scientists their first good look at the species. But the hunt goes on, this time using ultrasensitive microphones buried in the sand to record telltale vibrations. Scientists won't be able to say if they've heard one mole passing 10 times or 10 moles, says Withers. "But just knowing one is there would be a start." In the study of such elusive creatures, any knowledge is a gift.END