Dangerously ill with a scrub typhus, Dr Tim Flannery, was being carried form the mountains of Papua New Guinea when he noticed one of his stretcher bearers was wearing a black claw as a pendant. Though delirious, he bought the claw from the man and many weeks later unwrapped it in his museum laboratory. It would not match up with any known specimens. Tim Flannery knew he was on to a completely new species. The Black Tree Kangaroo was one of the many animal survivors 'marooned' on ecological islands in the sky, rainforest mountain peaks cut off by a changing lowland environment. Tim Flannery's search grew into a passion but it was to be seven years before he laid eyes on the Black Tree Kangaroo - and it had never been photographed until now. ISLANDS IN THE SKY is an adventure story about commitment to the natural world. It is set in the colourful, curious and traditional Papua New Guinea, one of the last biological frontiers on Earth. The story also reveals the dilemma of one culture's wish to preserve an endangered species and another's need to survive.