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

‘These kids can find anything’: California teens identify two new scorpion species.

The students traveled to salt lakes to collect specimens of unknown arachnids living in the harsh environment

A pair of California scorpion species that may have crawled under the radar for tens of thousands of years have finally been exposed – thanks to the efforts of two Bay Area teenagers. And for one at-risk species, the students’ work could prove life-saving.
Prakrit Jain of Los Altos and Harper Forbes of Sunnyvale, 17 and 18 at the time, identified two new species – Paruroctonus soda and Paruroctonus conclusus – after a tip from social media and excursions into the harsh terrain the arachnids inhabit, aided by a black light and Jain’s mother’s car.

It began when Jain and Forbes – who met while working at a nature preserve – spotted the unidentified scorpions on iNaturalist, a social network that allows people to share their observations of the natural world. Users all over the world can upload photos of organisms they’ve spotted and others with expertise in the area can identify them, Forbes explained.
With about 115m observations recorded on the platform, “the real benefit of this for people doing research is that it allows such an enormous amount of data to be present to anybody,” Jain says – data it would “take thousands of people many lifetimes to gather on their own”.

Jain and Forbes have been interested in ecology and wildlife “pretty much our whole lives”, Jain says.

“These kids can find anything,” says Lauren Esposito, an arachnologist at the California Academy of Sciences who collaborated with Jain and Forbes. “You set them out in a landscape and they’re like: ‘Here’s every species of snake, here’s every scorpion, every butterfly,’ and it’s kind of incredible.”

The students check iNaturalist regularly, “seeing if there’s anything that catches our eye”. Unidentified species frequently appear on the platform, but these two examples caught their attention in part because of their small range. They were “geographically isolated”, Forbes says, living around what Esposito describes as salt lakes, or alkali flats – “a former lake from the glacial era, 10,000 years ago, that’s dried out over time”, leaving a brutal desert environment.
(C) The Gaurdian. '22.
 
Scientists in Ecuador have discovered six new species of rain frog.

The new species were all found on the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorean Andes, in two national parks. But the scientists who discovered them have warned that all six Pristimantis species were found within a 20km-radius of deforested areas. They recommended that they all be added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) red list of threatened species.

There is a huge diversity of Pristimantis frogs with more than 550 different species living in areas ranging from eastern Honduras through the Andes to northern Argentina and Brazil. Colombia and Ecuador have the biggest wealth of species of these little land-dwelling frogs and scientists think there are many more species yet to be discovered.

This latest discovery was made by Ecuadorean herpetologists Jhael Ortega, Jorge Brito and Santiago Ron.

Mr Ron explained in a tweet that they had decided to name one of the species resistencia (resistance) in honour of all the environmental activists killed in Latin America.

According to a report by advocacy group Global Witness, more environmentalists were killed in Latin America than any other region in the world last year.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-63386174
 
A big find even if it is a little fish.

It is five centimeters long, but larger than all its relatives: Microichthys grandis, literally "big little fish."

Researchers from the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart in Germany and Wageningen Marine Research (WMR) in the Netherlands discovered this new fish species during a survey off the Irish coast last year. This finding in the Northeast Atlantic is something special for the scientists and has now been published in the journal Ichthyological Research.

Researcher Bram Couperus of WMR is pleasantly surprised by the spontaneous discovery: "Discovering a new fish species in the Northeast Atlantic is a rare event. It has not occurred before in the history of our institute, founded in the 1950s. This fish was caught in an area where there is a lot of fishing, especially by Dutch fishers. One would therefore expect the species to have been caught before. If this is the case, at least it escaped attention—until last year." ...

For the Wageningen researchers, the search for the fish's identity led via a Russian taxonomist to the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart in Germany, where the fish taxonomist Ronald Fricke already had experience with this group of fish, the deepwater cardinalfishes (Epigonidae).

Fricke notes, "Deepwater cardinalfishes of the genus Microichthys are known from three other species that live in the Mediterranean Sea and eastern Atlantic. They are free-swimming in deep water and only a handful of specimens is known to science. The discovery of the new species off Ireland is very exciting, as it seems closer related to a Mediterranean species from Sicily, than to the other Atlantic species from the Azores." ...

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-fish-species-deep-sea-ireland.html
 
Two new bad butterfly species!

Scientists have named a new group of butterflies after the villain Sauron from the Lord of the Rings novels.

Experts hit on the name Saurona because the black rings on the insect's orange wings reminded them of the all-seeing eye described in JRR Tolkien's books. The Natural History Museum in London hopes the unusual title will draw attention to the species and help generate more research. Two species of butterfly have been added to the newly named Saurona genus. Saurona triangular and Saurona aurigera are the inaugural members of the group but it's expected many more species will join them.

The name was picked by Dr Blanca Heurtas, curator of the butterflies at the museum, who is part of an international team who described the new genus in a paper published in the scientific journal Systematic Entomology.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65515790
 
Hiding in plain sight.

Sometimes it's not necessary to travel far, dig deep, or climb high to find a new species: sometimes they're hiding in plain sight, as is the case with the redtail garra, which has just been classified as a species of its own.

The fish has been a popular choice for people with aquariums since the early 2000s, but for a by-the-book scientific discovery, a species needs to be observed in its natural habitat. That's part of the reason it has gone without an official classification for so long.

In this case, experts came across several redtail garras during fieldwork along the Kasat River at the border of Thailand and Myanmar, which flows into the Ataran River in Myanmar. From there, they were able to carry out the most detailed analysis of the fish yet.

Redtail garra fish


Say hello to Garra panitvongi. (Tangjitjaroen et al., Zootaxa, 2023)

"When we first collected specimens, we thought it must be widespread in Myanmar because of its popularity in the aquarium trade," says ichthyologist Larry Page, from the Florida Museum of Natural History.

"But it turns out it's not. It's only in the Ataran River basin. There's surprisingly little information on their natural history."

The new species is interesting in several ways: it has a unique color scheme, including the red tail that gives it its name. They occasionally eat arthropods, but dine mainly on algae, which of course helps with cleaning aquariums.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-popular-fish-found-in-aquariums-is-actually-a-whole-new-species
 

Meet the 486-legged creature found in an LA park


A previously unknown species has been discovered lurking in the parks of Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The animal boasts 486 legs and a toothy, Predator-style head. It has the greenish translucence of a glow-in-the-dark toy in daylight, and weaves through the soil as elegantly as an embroiderer's needle.

2491254.jpg


But step away from the microscope and the Los Angeles thread millipede (Illacme socal) becomes a lot less intimidating. With the width of a thin mechanical pencil lead and the length of a sewing pin, it's easy to see how this tiny, thread-like snippet of an invertebrate has gone unnoticed — until now.

With the publication late last month of a paper formally introducing the critter, the Los Angeles thread millipede joins roughly 12,000 other named millipede species worldwide.

https://www.arcamax.com/currentnews/newsheadlines/s-2850807?fs

maximus otter
 
Two new types of mole unearthed.

Scientists have identified two types of mole which they believe have been living undiscovered in the mountains of eastern Turkey.

The new mole, named: Talpa hakkariensis and Talpa davidiana tatvanensis; belong to a familiar group of subterranean, invertebrate-eating mammals found across Europe and Western Asia.

While only one species, Talpa europaea, is found in Britain, further east there are a number of different moles, many of which have very small geographical ranges.

The researchers, using cutting edge DNA technology, have confirmed the new animals are biologically distinct from other moles.

There are only around 6,500 mammal species that have been identified across the world and, by comparison, there are around 400,000 species of beetles known, with an estimated one to two million on Earth
David Bilton, University of Plymouth

Both inhabit mountainous regions in eastern Turkey and are able to survive in temperatures of up to 50C in summer and being buried under two metres (about 6ft) of snow in winter.

https://www.ireland-live.ie/news/uk...f-mole-discovered-in-mountains-of-turkey.html
 
At the Mountains of Madness!

Researchers trawling the ocean near Antarctica uncovered a new species that looks haunting in photos — but named it after a fruit.

The Antarctic strawberry feather star is a sea creature with 20 so-called "arms" — some bumpy, some feathery — and can altogether be up to eight inches long, Greg Rouse, a marine biology professor at the University of California, San Diego, told Insider.

Rouse co-authored the paper on the new species with researchers Emily McLaughlin and Nerid Wilson, publishing their findings in Invertebrate Systematics last month.

The alien-like creature does not appear to look like a strawberry at first. But if you zoom in on its body — a tiny nub at the apex of all those arms — it resembles the size and shape of the fruit.

Sea Feather Species


A preserved Antarctic strawberry feather star, or Promachocrinus fragarius. (Greg W. Rouse)


The circular bumps on the star's body are where the cirri — the smaller tentacle-like strings protruding from the base — should be, but were removed to show the attachment points, Rouse said.

"We've taken away a bunch of the cirri so you can see the parts that they're attached to, and that's what looks like a strawberry," he said. He added that the cirri have tiny claws at the end that are used to hold onto the bottom of the seafloor.

The so-called arms are the longer, feathery-like parts of the Antarctic strawberry feather star shown in the image. They're typically spread out, Rouse said, and help with the creature's mobility.

https://www.sciencealert.com/alien-like-ocean-creature-with-20-arms-discovered-near-antarctica
 
Indiana Jones and the little spotted snake.

Scientists working in Peru have named a new species of snake after Harrison Ford in honor of the "Indiana Jones" actor's support for conservation work.

The 40 cm (16 inch) reptile was first discovered in May 2022 in the jungle mountains of Otishi National Park, San Marcos National University said Wednesday.

But it was not until now that researchers concluded it was indeed a previously unknown species. This creature is a yellowish-brown color, with black spots, a black belly and copper eyes. It has been given the scientific name Tachymenoides harrisonfordi.

The snake was first found by a team led by Edgar Lehr, a US-German biologist. It is now named after Ford because he is active in environmental issues, Lehr told AFP from the state of Illinois.

"I found out that Harrison Ford agreed to have his name used via a consultation that Conservation International made", he added, referring to an NGO.

He said the snake was discovered in an area that is only accessible by helicopter.

"It took us seven days to find it," said Lehr.

https://phys.org/news/2023-08-species-snake-peru-harrison-ford.html
 
New leggy worms.

A team of marine scientists and zoologists from Japan, Malaysia, the U.S. and Russia has discovered two new species of Hesionidae—a type of segmented worm. In their paper published in the journal PeerJ, the group describes how they found the worms living off the cost of Japan's Ryukyu Islands (part of Okinawa's tidal flats) in sandy burrows created by ghost shrimp. They also describe them and outline where the worms fit on the Hesionidae family tree.

Hesionidae are a family of phyllodocid "bristle worms" with legs that look like bristles or tines on a hair comb. They are typically found on continental shelves, though some have been found off the shores of islands. They all have anterior segments that allow the worm to twist and turn. The research team found the two new species while studying the burrowing habits of ghost shrimp, which are also known as glass shrimp due to their transparent bodies.

As they poked around in shrimp burrows, the team came across the two new species of worms cohabiting with the shrimp—both were bright red and both had four eyes. They have been named Parahesione apiculata and Parahesione pulvinata, after the unique shape of the organs on their backs.

The researchers noted that all four of P. pulvinata's eyes were dark red, situated near two sets of cirri. All four of P. apiculata's eyes were discreet and surrounded by triplets of cirri. ...

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-species-worms-japan-ryukyu-islands.html
 
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I was hoping it would be a giant hedgehog.

Newly discovered hedgehog species diverged from others more than a million years ago​


Newly discovered hedgehog species diverged from others more than a million years ago


A living Mesechinus orientalis sp. nov. (XC 2205003) from Xuancheng, Anhui. Credit: ZooKeys (2023). DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1185.111615

Researchers at Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, China, have announced the discovery of a new species within the hedgehog genus Mesechinus. The eastern China hedgehog species was found to be distinct from other regional hedgehogs across morphological and phylogenetic characteristics.

In their paper, "A new species of forest hedgehog (Mesechinus, Erinaceidae, Eulipotyphla, Mammalia) from eastern China," published in the open access journal ZooKeys, the research team details the analysis resulting in the decision to formally describe a new species of hedgehog, Mesechinus orientalis.

Previously known Mesechinus species (M. dauuricus, M. hughi, M. miodon, and M. wangi) mainly inhabit northern China, Mongolia, Russia and southwestern China. This new species is exclusive to eastern China.

Seven Mesechinus specimens were collected from eastern China between 2018 and 2023 to determine which species of hedgehog they were. The researchers utilized various methodologies, including morphological measurements, mitochondrial genome sequencing, assembly, annotation, and phylogenetic analysis using genetic data from several Mesechinus species and related hedgehog genera obtained from GenBank.

https://phys.org/news/2023-12-newly-hedgehog-species-diverged-million.htm
 
Researchers at Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, China, have announced the discovery of a new species within the hedgehog genus Mesechinus. The eastern China hedgehog species was found to be distinct from other regional hedgehogs across morphological and phylogenetic characteristics.
This is apparently a good year to discover hedgehogs as five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs (no me neither) have been discovered. Although by "discovered", it means just found to be distinct species rather than subspecies or discovered in museum collections. Very cute though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67780254

Scientists have discovered five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs from South East Asia.
The revelation required several scientific missions to the animals' tropical forest home to study them.
Researchers also re-evaluated specimens of the mammals which had been in museum collections for decades.
This detailed, biological spot-the-difference study revealed that two of the animals in the museums were new species to science.
Three others - that had been categorised as subtypes of one species - were confirmed to be sufficiently distinct from each other to be formally recognised as individual species.
 
This is apparently a good year to discover hedgehogs as five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs (no me neither) have been discovered. Although by "discovered", it means just found to be distinct species rather than subspecies or discovered in museum collections. Very cute though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67780254
I saw the picture and thought it looks shrew-like. Apparently they are related to shrews (or vice versa):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrew
 

Elusive ‘alligator’-like creature found in treetops of Mexico. It’s a new species


Tucked in the treetops of southern Mexico was an “alligator”-like creature. Hidden by the foliage and obscured by the height, the “unusually large” animal had generally avoided detection. When determined scientists eventually found the scaly animal, it turned out to be a new species.

image


The yearslong quest began after some “intriguing photographs emerged” in 2014 of a tree-dwelling lizard from Coapilla.

Researchers searched for the elusive lizards on five expeditions between 2015 and 2022.

The search turned out to involve “extraordinary difficulty,” the study said. Researchers spent over 350 hours searching the ground and used climbing gear to search the limbs and canopy of about 20 trees.

Eventually, researchers found five of the “alligator”-like lizards. They took a closer look at the animals and realized they’d discovered a new species: Abronia cunemica, or the Coapilla arboreal alligator lizard.

Coapilla arboreal alligator lizards are “unusually large” and can reach about 9.8 inches in length, researchers said. They have yellow-brown scaly bodies covered in darker brown blotches. Their eyes are “pale yellow” with dark flecks.

https://news.yahoo.com/elusive-alligator-creature-found-treetops-173259785.html

maximus otter
 
I'd like to be
Under the sea
In an octopus' garden
With four previously unknown species of octopus.

A secret land of wonders awaits those who dive deep under the ocean off the coast of Costa Rica.

There, some 2,800 meters (almost 9,200 feet) below the surface, in nooks and crannies shimmering with heat seeping from the seafloor, huge numbers of pearly octopuses nestle, incubating their precious young. It's a jaw-dropping sight.

Discovered just last year, the site at Tengosed Seamount is a rare octopus nursery tucked away in the dark bathypelagic, a place ordinarily considered too cold for delicate cephalopods. Yet warmth provided by volcanic seamounts creates temperatures perfect for nesting, for a number of different octopus species.

So diverse is the assembly, in fact, that scientists have now identified four previously unknown species of octopus tending their eggs in the Octopus Garden.

"Through hard work, our team discovered new hydrothermal springs offshore Costa Rica and confirmed that they host nurseries of deep-sea octopus and unique biodiversity," says oceanographer Beth Orcutt of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.

"It was less than a decade ago that low-temperature hydrothermal venting was confirmed on ancient volcanoes away from mid-ocean ridges. These sites are significantly difficult to find since you cannot detect their signatures in the water column."

The discovery, and subsequent observation expeditions, were not made by humans in person; that would be rather difficult to manage. Rather, a remotely operated underwater vehicle, the R/V Falkor, made repeated dives to the Octopus Garden, collecting extensive imagery and, in December of last year, over 160 deep-sea specimens to help identify and catalog the site's incredible biodiversity.

https://www.sciencealert.com/four-n...deep-sea-paradise-off-the-coast-of-costa-rica
 
I'd like to be
Under the sea
In an octopus' garden
With four previously unknown species of octopus.

A secret land of wonders awaits those who dive deep under the ocean off the coast of Costa Rica.

There, some 2,800 meters (almost 9,200 feet) below the surface, in nooks and crannies shimmering with heat seeping from the seafloor, huge numbers of pearly octopuses nestle, incubating their precious young. It's a jaw-dropping sight.

Discovered just last year, the site at Tengosed Seamount is a rare octopus nursery tucked away in the dark bathypelagic, a place ordinarily considered too cold for delicate cephalopods. Yet warmth provided by volcanic seamounts creates temperatures perfect for nesting, for a number of different octopus species.

So diverse is the assembly, in fact, that scientists have now identified four previously unknown species of octopus tending their eggs in the Octopus Garden.

"Through hard work, our team discovered new hydrothermal springs offshore Costa Rica and confirmed that they host nurseries of deep-sea octopus and unique biodiversity," says oceanographer Beth Orcutt of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.

"It was less than a decade ago that low-temperature hydrothermal venting was confirmed on ancient volcanoes away from mid-ocean ridges. These sites are significantly difficult to find since you cannot detect their signatures in the water column."

The discovery, and subsequent observation expeditions, were not made by humans in person; that would be rather difficult to manage. Rather, a remotely operated underwater vehicle, the R/V Falkor, made repeated dives to the Octopus Garden, collecting extensive imagery and, in December of last year, over 160 deep-sea specimens to help identify and catalog the site's incredible biodiversity.

https://www.sciencealert.com/four-n...deep-sea-paradise-off-the-coast-of-costa-rica
Beautiful. I have to post the link that is imbedded in the article. The video of the octopi and other creatures is wonderful.

 

New species of moth with whip-like defensive mechanism discovered in Brazil

A spectacular new species of moth – named Americerura brasiliensis – has been discovered in Brazil.

IMG_1572.jpeg


Resembling a boldly marked European puss moth, its hindmost legs have been remodelled as a pair of defensive organs called stemapods, which each extrude a red, whip-like filament to deter predators.

It feeds on plants from the willow family. It belongs to a genus of American species whose closest relatives occur in Africa, which suggests its ancestors managed to cross the Atlantic.

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/ne...americerura-brasiliensis-discovered-in-brazil

maximus otter
 
More than 100 new species discovered on seamounts.

Some 3000 meters underwater off the coast of Chile, striking purple, green, and orange sponges burst from the rocks.

Sea urchins with maroon spines gather in colonies, while poppy-colored crustaceans pick their way among them. Transparent, ghostly creatures undulate in the dark. A team of researchers captured these and dozens of other never-before-seen species—more than 100 in total—with a camera mounted to a deep-sea robot traversing largely explored underwater mountains, known as seamounts, with steep cliffs that rise from the sea floor.

Researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute recorded footage up to 4500 meters deep near the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridges, which together stretch more than 3000 kilometers. Along with the variety of new organisms—including sponges, amphipods, urchins, crustaceans, and corals—the team mapped four seamounts in Chilean waters that were previously unknown to scientists, they report today in a press release. The tallest of these measured 3530 meters from sea floor to peak and was unofficially named Solito by the researchers.

https://www.science.org/content/art...in-range-scientists-find-more-100-new-species
 

Mystery sea creature discovered in UK waters​

Pleurobranchaea Britannica

The sea slug has distinctive feathery gills on one side of its body

A new species of sea slug has been discovered in UK waters.

It was caught off the south-west of England from a research ship. The creature has been named Pleurobranchaea britannica. It belongs to a group found in warmer waters, which could be migrating north due to climate change. With ocean temperatures at record levels there is concern about the impact on marine life.

Ross Bullimore of the Centre for the Environment, Food and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) made the serendipitous discovery. About 100 different sea slugs are found in the seas off Britain and Ireland, but he knew instantly this was something special.

"It was like a light bulb going off," he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68438582
 
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