In 2025, a six-month expedition on Mount Wilhelm in Papua New Guinea produced the first known photographs and video of a live subalpine woolly rat in the wild. Camera traps recorded the elusive, nocturnal rodent moving through remote mountain habitat.
What is the subalpine woolly rat?
The subalpine woolly rat is a large New Guinea rodent whose scientific name is Mallomys istapantap. It was scientifically described in 1989 from museum material, rather than from observations of living animals in the wild.
Before the 2025 expedition, knowledge of the species came mainly from museum specimens, skulls and painted illustrations. ABC News Australia reported that about 50 scientific specimens were known, most of them skulls.
Where was the rat filmed?
The expedition documented the animal on Mount Wilhelm, in Papua New Guinea. New Guinea is the island; Papua New Guinea is the country where the expedition took place. The rat’s habitat is high and remote: Smithsonian Magazine reported an elevation range of about 10,500–12,140 feet.
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Czech biologist František Vejmělka led the six-month expedition with assistance from local Indigenous communities. Camera traps recorded the rat at night, when it is active. IFLScience reported that the expedition documented 61 mammal species in total.
How large is Mallomys istapantap?
Live Science reported in 2025 that the species can reach about 85 centimetres (33.5 inches) in length and about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) in weight. These are reported maximums, not measurements of every animal. Smithsonian Magazine describes it as the biggest rodent in Australia and Oceania; that regional description should not be read as a claim that it is the world’s largest rodent.
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What does it eat, and how does it live?
The subalpine woolly rat is nocturnal, climbs trees and eats plant material, including ferns. Its activity at night and its mountain habitat help explain why camera traps were useful for documenting it: they can record animals moving through an area without requiring researchers to see them directly.
Why was it filmed alive only now?
The species lives in difficult-to-reach highlands and is active at night, making direct observation challenging. Earlier scientific knowledge relied largely on preserved material rather than footage of living rats. The expedition’s images therefore fill an important documentation gap, but they do not by themselves establish how common the species is or how its population is changing.
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What is still unknown about the species?
The reports on the expedition do not provide a defensible population estimate or a formal conservation assessment. They also do not establish a particular commercial camera model: the footage is attributed to camera traps, without a make or model being specified. More field study is needed to determine the species’ population, distribution and conservation status.
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