The long-footed potoroo is only one of a string of "new" macropods. As recently as 1994, Gilbert's potoroo was rediscovered in southwestern Western Australia after an absence of more than a century. Only a handful had ever been seen.
Perhaps the most celebrated story of rediscovery is that of the parma wallaby, a small animal with a white throat and chest. The creature had not been seen in eastern New South Wales since the early 1930s and was thought to be extinct. In the early 1960s, a scientist recognized the skin of an animal taken from the small island of Kawau near Auckland in New Zealand as that of a parma wallaby. Sure enough, the species was found on Kawau in 1975.
Parma wallabies had been released on the island in the 1830s by a former colonial governor of New Zealand and explorer of Australia, Sir George Grey. By the 1960s, there were so many wallabies on Kawau, they were regarded as pests, and efforts were being made to exterminate them. Soon after a breeding population had been reestablished in captivity in Australia from New Zealand stock, biologist Gerry Maynes, now with Australia's environment ministry, found wild parma wallabies again in rain forest north of Sydney.
In 1977, Maynes also was associated with the discovery of another macropod, the Proserpine rock-wallaby. He had heard news reports of "some sort of tree-kangaroo" which had been seen near the town of Proserpine on Queensland's central coast.
Then there is the bridled nailtail-wallaby, known in only one location in central Queensland. Thought to be extinct, it was found again by a kangaroo shooter in the mid-1975s on a property near the town of Dingo. The property has since been purchased with government money and is managed as the Taunton Scientific Reserve to ensure the conservation of the species.