[1][2] While excavating a bank to widen the Pureni Mission airstrip in Wabag, New Guinea, to comply with new regulations, the Huli workers unearthed fossils in 1967.

They reportedly were frightened by their discovery as bones in their culture are associated with the ancestors, so the material was somewhat damaged by their inquisitive prodding until they were brought to the attention of Father Bernard Tomasetti, who recognized the significance.

Geologists Paul Williams and Michael Plane subsequently headed field expeditions in the area beginning in 1969 in search of more remains.

The Pureni site is a 2,000 m (6,600 ft) marine limestone sequence stretching from the Late Oligocene to the Pliocene, until it was filled in by lava about 850,000 years ago by Mount Iumu during the Middle Pleistocene.

[2] The only elements of the forelimb known are a single right humerus (missing some of the middle portion) and a poorly preserved distal radial fragment (towards the wrist joint).

[2] Hulitherium lived in montane rain forests and was proposed in its initial description to have fed on bamboo, as a kind-of marsupial analogue of the giant panda.

[1][3][4] The head of the femur lies directly above the shaft, which along with the morphology of the humerus-ulnar joint, suggests that Hulitherium reared up on its hind legs to feed.