( CNN ) -- Scientists have found a wide-eyed primate -- a clawed fur ball that fits snugly in one hand -- in the first live sighting in more than 80 years of a creature that some thought was extinct . `` It was truly amazing , '' one scientist said . `` I could n't conceive that we had actually caught one . '' Over a two-month period , scientists working in Lore Lindu National Park on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi caught and released three pygmy tarsiers . They bear a striking resemblance to the Furby , an electronic toy that spoke its own fantasy language and dominated children 's wish lists in the late 1990s . They caught two males and one female , said Sharon Gursky-Doyen , a Texas A & M University anthropology professor who led the expedition . The group spotted a fourth -- high in the tree canopy -- but were unable to catch it . The species had not been observed alive in more than eight decades , since they were collected for a museum in 1921 . Many scientists had believed them to be extinct until eight years ago , when two scientists trapping rats in Sulawesi accidentally trapped and killed one . `` I needed to go myself ... to confirm in my own mind , '' whether they were there , Gursky-Doyen told CNN on Wednesday , after recently returning from Indonesia . And , on the second night of trapping in August on moss-covered , chilly Mt . Rore Katimbo , her group caught the first small nocturnal creature in a mist net . `` It was truly amazing , '' she said . `` My whole body was shaking ... I could n't conceive that we had actually caught one . '' The second trapping did n't come until three weeks later , but that first sighting `` kept us going , '' Gursky-Doyen said , amid the cold , drenched conditions . The pygmy tarsier , or Tarsius pumilus , weighs about 50 grams ( 1.7 ounces ) , and has dense fur , large , protruding eyes . In addition to seeming as a living , breathing version of the Furby , it also appears as though it ought to have had appeared in the 1984 movie `` Gremlins . '' Unlike other primates , the pygmy tarsier -- endemic to a specific area of Indonesia -- has claws instead of nails on its fingers . It is half as big as the Philippines tarsier , which has similar features . For their part , the pygmy tarsiers may have been more frightened than elated at being discovered . `` I was bit once , but I take responsibility for that , '' Gursky-Doyen said , explaining that the animal nipped her as she was trying to attach a radio collar -- to track its movement -- to its neck . The task is n't an easy one , she said , because the animal can swivel its head around 180 degrees . Despite another person helping to hold the animal still , he turned and bit her , she said . They have `` pointy , triangular teeth , '' she said . It was `` very painful . '' But for the most part , they appeared very `` passive , '' she said . Other tarsier species give alarm calls , but these did n't , at least nothing that a human could hear , she said . Gursky-Doyen said she would like her graduate student , Nanda Grow , also on the expedition , to return to the field site for her dissertation , to learn more about the number of animals and how altitude and other variables affect them . `` I do believe that the density of these animals is very low , '' she said , noting that many villages are located within Lore Lindu National Park . `` That threatens them , '' she said .
Pygmy tarsiers thought to be extinct for more than eight decades . The pygmy tarsier is a small mammal that lives in the forests of Central and South America, where it feeds on insects and other invertebrates. Primate resembles Furby toy that was popular in 1990s . Scientist says villages near park threaten pygmy tarsiers ' existence .