Islands in the sky: the search for the Black Tree Kangaroo

Set in colourful Papua New Guinea, Tim Flannery, while ill, was being carried from the mountains when he noticed one of the stretcher bearers wore a black claw as pendant. This was the first piece in a biological detective story to locate a completely new species of mammal. Tim searched for 7 years until he found the Black Tree Kangaroo, or “Tenkile”. This creature had never been filmed before. It was one of the many animal survivors “marooned” on ecological islands in the sky, rainforest peaks isolated from lowland environments.

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

How to watch

This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. It may be possible for approved reseachers to view onsite at ACMI.

Learn more about accessing our collection

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

producer/director

Gary Steer

production company

ABC-TV (Australia)

Sky Visuals

Duration

01:00:00:00

Production places

Australia

Production dates

1990

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

303552

Language

English

Audience classification

G

Subject categories

Animals & Wildlife → Mammals

Animals & Wildlife → Tree kangaroos

Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Papua New Guinea - Description and travel

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/82403--islands-in-the-sky-the-search-for-the-black-tree-kangaroo/ |title=Islands in the sky: the search for the Black Tree Kangaroo |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=30 April 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}

Australia, 1990

Please note