Newly Discovered: Previously Unknown Animal Species (Not Alleged Cryptids Or Species Believed Extinct)

[gordonrutter]

Scientists believe they may have discovered the smallest reptile on earth - a chameleon subspecies that is the size of a seed.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-africa-55945948View attachment 34736

I’m sorry but the authors of this article are not using an officially recognised Fortean Unit of Measurement (FUM). A seed? Do they mean a seed of an orchid which is basically dust like or the seed of the Coco de Mer which can be a foot long and weigh 40 pounds?

 

[Nosmo King]

I’m sorry but the authors of this article are not using an officially recognised Fortean Unit of Measurement (FUM). A seed? Do they mean a seed of an orchid which is basically dust like or the seed of the Coco de Mer which can be a foot long and weigh 40 pounds?

Maybe its 0.00000000000001 times the size of a doubledecker bus

 

[GNC]

How does it relate to the size of Wales?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Scientists believe they may have discovered the smallest reptile on earth - a chameleon subspecies that is the size of a seed.

 

[ramonmercado]

Kosovan Covid Caddisfly.

Restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic have helped a Kosovar biologist sit down and complete his research, raise public awareness of the pollution of river basins – and name a new insect after the virus.

Professor Halil Ibrahimi, 44, had spent years working on a research report on a caddisfly species found in Kosovo’s western Bjeshket e Nemuna (Accursed Mountains) national park. That species now bears the name Potamophylax coronavirus.

As an associate professor of the Natural Sciences Faculty at Pristina University, Prof Ibrahimi collected the species, which turned out to be endemic to the national park, 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of the capital Pristina, and found it was quite different from the other species in the Balkans.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40270475.html

 

[ramonmercado]

A cute little boa.

A wide-eyed snake has made scientists do a double take.

The Hispaniolan vineboa, with its large protruding eyes and square snout, is the first boa species to be discovered in the Dominican Republic in more than a century.

Naturalist Miguel Landestoy of the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and colleagues discovered the snake, Chilabothrus ampelophis, slithering in a patch of mountainous dry forest near the country’s southwestern border with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola. The last time researchers described a new boa species on the island was in 1888.

“The fact that an animal could have gone undetected for so long on this island that has a lot of people on it is pretty remarkable,” says R. Graham Reynolds, a herpetologist at the University of North Carolina Asheville.

What’s more, the Hispaniolan vineboa may be among the smallest boas in the world, Reynolds, Landestoy and colleague Robert Henderson of the Milwaukee Public Museum report August 17 in Breviora. Adult boa species typically reach 2 meters or more in length (SN: 10/13/09). The longest Hispaniolan vineboa that the team found, an adult female, measures less than 1 meter. The shortest, probably a juvenile male, is less than a half meter long.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/boa-snake-caribbean-hispaniolan-vineboa

 

[michael59]

It's also very beautiful. The markings on it's skin are like a intricate tattoo.

 

[ramonmercado]

Great tonguer.

On the island of Madagascar there lives a large moth with a tongue long enough to make Gene Simmons green with envy. Its name? Xanthopan praedicta. Its business? Sucking the pollen out of a very long and skinny orchid.

This moth’s whole history is absurd. Charles Darwin predicted its existence when he first saw the shape of the Angraecum sesquipedale orchid (which apparently prompted him to exclaim, “Good heavens, what insect can suck it?”). About 2 decades later, in 1903, the moth was actually discovered, and ever since, the Malagasy variant has been considered a subspecies of its mainland counterpart, X. morganii. But no longer.

Using a slew of morphological and genetic tests, scientists argue the island moth is substantially different enough from its mainland counterpart to merit its elevation to the species level, the Natural History Museum announced yesterday.

Working with a combination of wild moths and museum specimens, the team reports that DNA barcoding, a technique that can be used to identify organisms by looking at DNA sequence differences in the same gene or genes, shows the moth’s genetics differ by as much as 7.8% in key gene sequences, which actually makes the morganii moths more closely related to a few other mainland subspecies than praedicta.

https://www.science.org/content/article/new-species-has-longest-tongue-any-insect

 

[ramonmercado]

The Jackie Chan Gecko!

Martial arts legend Jackie Chan may not be aware of this yet but some of his biggest fans are a group of adoring herpetologists from India. These scientists have named a newly identified gecko species, the Jackie’s day gecko (Cnemaspis jackieii), after Chan.

This lizard is one of 12 new gecko species found in India that researchers describe September 23 in Zoological Research. All 12 species are endemic to the Western Ghats, a biodiversity-rich mountain range threatened by deforestation and changing land use (SN: 3/18/19).

Working at mid-elevation in the Western Ghats, the team noticed an extremely agile gecko. “Whenever we attempted to catch it, it would spring from one rock to the other, and crawl into the smallest of crevices to escape us,” says Saunak Pal of the Bombay Natural History Society in Mumbai. Immediately, it reminded the researchers of the nimble-footed Chan, spurring them to name it after the martial artist.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gecko-india-jackie-chan-western-ghats-mountains

 

[EnolaGaia]

A new species of millipede has been discovered in Australia. One specimen was found to have 1,306 legs - a new world's record, and the first millipede ('thousand-leg') found to actually have as many legs as its name implies.

Newfound millipede breaks world record for the most legs

A newfound species of millipede has more legs than any other creature on the planet — a mind-boggling 1,300 of them. The leggy critters live deep below Earth's surface and are the only known millipedes to live up to their name.

"The word 'millipede' has always been a bit of a misnomer," said Paul Marek, an entomologist at Virginia Tech university and lead author of the study describing the newfound species. All other known millipedes Millipedes sport far fewer legs than their name implies, with many species having fewer than 100 legs. Until now, the record-holder was a species called Illacme plenipes, a deep-soil dweller known to have as many as 750 legs. ...

But the newfound species, Eumilipes persephone — named after Persephone, the daughter of Zeus who was taken by Hades to the underworld — is the leggiest known animal on the planet. One specimen Marek analyzed has 1,306 legs, which smashes the current record. ...

The new world record-holder is a pale, eyeless creature with a long, threadlike body that’s nearly 100 times longer than it is wide. Its cone-shaped head has enormous antennae for navigating a dark world governed by pheromones, and a beak that’s optimized for feeding on fungi. ...

This species was discovered 200 feet (60 meters) below Earth's surface in a relatively unexplored environment built from banded iron formations and volcanic rock. ...

The creatures were first spotted in a region of Western Australia known as the Goldfields, which is a nexus for mineral extraction. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/new-millipede-has-the-most-legs-on-the-planet

 

[michael59]

A new species of millipede has been discovered in Australia. One specimen was found to have 1,306 legs - a new world's record, and the first millipede ('thousand-leg') found to actually have as many legs as its name implies.

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/new-millipede-has-the-most-legs-on-the-planet

Why do they need all those legs? Are they just for burrowing into the soil?

 

[ramonmercado]

The fertile Mekong.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) conservation group has published a list of 224 newly discovered species from the greater Mekong region.

They include a monkey with ghostly white circles around its eyes, frogs, newts and the only known succulent bamboo species, a WWF report says.

Some of the world's most endangered species in the area face extinction even before they have been identified.
The Mekong region includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60106144

 

[ramonmercado]

Turning over a new leaf in the annals of insects. Alvin will be Helden in great respect.

A scientist who has discovered a new species of insect immediately "knew it was something very special".

Dr Alvin Helden of Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, found the leafhopper on a student field trip to Kibale National Park, in west Uganda.
He named the metallic-sheened insect Phlogis kibalensis.

Dr Helden said it is from an "incredibly rare" group of leafhoppers, whose "biology remains almost completely unknown".

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-60154018

 

[hunck]

Newly discovered rainbow-colored fish lives in the ocean's 'twilight zone'​

Found around the Maldives.

The fish, which bears the scientific name Cirrhilabrus finifenmaa, was found living at depths ranging from 131 to 229 feet (40 to 70 meters) beneath the ocean's surface.

The name honors the fish's stunning pink hues, as well as the pink rose, the national flower of the Maldives. "Finifenmaa" means "rose" in the local Dhivehi language.

 

[Mythopoeika]

It's beautiful!

 

[michael59]

Such a perfect specimen.

I know it's wrong, but I keep wondering what it would taste like.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Such a perfect specimen.

I know it's wrong, but I keep wondering what it would taste like.

Like a rainbow, of course.

 

[Tunn11]

Such a perfect specimen.

I know it's wrong, but I keep wondering what it would taste like.

If it tastes nice its future is assured.

 

[GNC]

If it tastes nice its future is assured.

But short.

It looks like a goldfish, it'll taste like a goldfish.

 

[Tunn11]

But short.

It looks like a goldfish, it'll taste like a goldfish.

There is a theory that nowadays if something tastes nice it will get farmed and therefore its future will be assured. Maybe not the future it would have wanted of course.
Not sure how many extict animals tasted terrible. Dodos apparently did, Greak Auks? Passenger pigeons? If therapod dinosaurs were bird ancestors they probably tasted like chicken but would have needed a lot of defrosting.
Of course the theory breaks down with sharks, tortoises etc.

 

[GNC]

There is a theory that nowadays if something tastes nice it will get farmed and therefore its future will be assured. Maybe not the future it would have wanted of course.
Not sure how many extict animals tasted terrible. Dodos apparently did, Greak Auks? Passenger pigeons? If therapod dinosaurs were bird ancestors they probably tasted like chicken but would have needed a lot of defrosting.
Of course the theory breaks down with sharks, tortoises etc.

Yeah, I think the surviving tasty animals have to be farmed, really. Nobody thought the dodo was worth farming, it was just easy to catch. People did find passenger pigeons delicious, though, but I don't know how you farm pigeons.

 

[Mythopoeika]

But short.

It looks like a goldfish, it'll taste like a goldfish.

I imagine goldfish to taste like fish fingers.

 

[GNC]

I imagine goldfish to taste like fish fingers.

All fish more or less tastes the same, doesn't it?

 

[michael59]

All fish more or less tastes the same, doesn't it?

Tastes like more.

 

[michael59]

I imagine goldfish to taste like fish fingers.

I just watched a 12 episode zombie movie called All of us are Dead. There was this one girl who was sucking back goldfish out of the fishtank as if they were candy.

 

[hunck]

New species of crab

Identified as a new species, the fuzzy little fella is part of the sponge crab family and has been christened Lamarckdromia beagle.

It was discovered after washing up on a beach close to the city of Denmark, in Western Australia.
it uses the soft fronds trimmed from sponges. It’s a form of camoflage that helps the crab hide away from potential predators.

‘sponge crabs are often hairy, but it is more like felt or velvet, rather than this complete shaggy coat.’

 

[brownmane]

I think it looks like a scrubby with hairclips.

 

[ramonmercado]

The plip plop of tiny hopping feet.

Six new species of miniature frogs have been discovered in the forests of Mexico.

The species are so tiny that they fit on top of a British 50p coin with lots of room to spare. They are among the smallest frogs in the world and are no larger than 15 millimetres (0.6 inches).

They were undetected for so long due to their small stature, colouring and their similarity to existing species.

"These frogs live in the dark, humid leaf litter of the forests and we don't really know anything about what goes on there. We don't understand their behaviour, how they socialise, or how they breed," says Tom Jameson, a researcher at the University of Cambridge. Leaf litter is made up of dead plants or leaves that have fallen to the ground.

The species are not widespread across the country and are mostly found in pine-oak forests, in the Sierra Madre del Sur region in southern Mexico.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62271380

 

[michael59]

The plip plop of tiny hopping feet.

Six new species of miniature frogs have been discovered in the forests of Mexico.

The species are so tiny that they fit on top of a British 50p coin with lots of room to spare. They are among the smallest frogs in the world and are no larger than 15 millimetres (0.6 inches).

They were undetected for so long due to their small stature, colouring and their similarity to existing species.

"These frogs live in the dark, humid leaf litter of the forests and we don't really know anything about what goes on there. We don't understand their behaviour, how they socialise, or how they breed," says Tom Jameson, a researcher at the University of Cambridge. Leaf litter is made up of dead plants or leaves that have fallen to the ground.

The species are not widespread across the country and are mostly found in pine-oak forests, in the Sierra Madre del Sur region in southern Mexico.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62271380

Well that's particularly good news considering amphibians are on the endangered species list.

Frogs are dying off at record rates — an ominous sign the 6th mass extinction is hitting one group of creatures hardest​

https://www.businessinsider.com/frogs-amphibians-dying-6th-mass-extinction-photos-2019-6

 

[Floyd]

Scientists discover new species of mysterious isopod deep-sea creature.​

Scientists identified a new species of giant isopod crustaceans that live in the deepest parts of the ocean, called Bathynomus yucatanensis, a new study published on Wednesday detailed.

https://www.jpost.com/science/article-714162