The
top 10 new species list was announced May 23 by the International
Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. The 2013
list includes an amazing glow-in-the-dark cockroach, a harp-shaped
carnivorous sponge and the smallest vertebrate on Earth – a tiny frog.
Rounding out this year's list is a snail-eating false coral snake,
flowering bushes from a disappearing forest, a green lacewing, a
hangingfly fossil, a monkey with a blue-colored behind and human-like
eyes, a tiny violet and a black staining fungus. (Photo composite by
Jacob Sahertian)
Source: ASU News
An amazing glow-in-the-dark cockroach, a harp-shaped
carnivorous sponge and the smallest vertebrate on Earth are just three
of the newly discovered top 10 species selected by the International
Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. A global
committee of taxonomists – scientists responsible for species
exploration and classification – announced its list of top 10 species
from 2012 today, May 23.
The announcement, now in its sixth year, coincides with
the anniversary of the birth of Carolus Linnaeus – the 18th century
Swedish botanist responsible for the modern system of scientific names
and classifications.
Also slithering its way into this year’s top 10 is a
snail-eating false coral snake, as well as flowering bushes from a
disappearing forest in Madagascar, a green lacewing that was discovered
through social media and hangingflies that perfectly mimicked ginkgo
tree leaves 165 million years ago. Rounding out the list is a new monkey
with a blue-colored behind and human-like eyes, a tiny violet and a
black staining fungus that threatens rare Paleolithic cave paintings in
France.
“We have identified only about two million of an estimated
10 to 12 million living species and that does not count most of the
microbial world,” said Quentin Wheeler, founding director of the
International Institute for Species Exploration at ASU and author of
“What on Earth? 100 of our Planet’s Most Amazing New Species” (NY,
Plume, 2013).
“For decades, we have averaged 18,000 species discoveries
per year which seemed reasonable before the biodiversity crisis. Now,
knowing that millions of species may not survive the 21st century, it is
time to pick up the pace,” Wheeler added.
“We are calling for a NASA-like mission to discover 10
million species in the next 50 years. This would lead to discovering
countless options for a more sustainable future while securing evidence
of the origins of the biosphere,” Wheeler said.
Taxon experts pick top 10
Members of the international committee made their top 10
selection from more than 140 nominated species. To be considered,
species must have been described in compliance with the appropriate code
of nomenclature – whether botanical, zoological or microbiological –
and have been officially named during 2012.
“Selecting the final list of new species from a wide
representation of life forms, such as bacteria, fungi, plants and
animals, is difficult. It requires finding an equilibrium between
certain criteria and the special insights revealed by selection
committee members,” said Antonio Valdecasas, a biologist and research
zoologist with Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain.
Valdecasas is the international selection committee chairman for the top
10 new species.
“We look for organisms with unexpected features or size
and those found in rare or difficult to reach habitats. We also look for
organisms that are especially significant to humans – those that play a
certain role in human habitat or that are considered a close relative,”
Valdecasas added.
This year’s top 10 come from Peru; NE Pacific Ocean, USA:
California; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Panama; France; New
Guinea; Madagascar; Ecuador; Malaysia; and China.
Top 10 new species 2013
“I don’t know whether to be more astounded by the species
discovered each year or the depths of our ignorance about biodiversity,
of which we are a part,” shared Wheeler.
“At the same time we search the heavens for other
earthlike planets, we should make it a high priority to explore the
biodiversity on the most earthlike planet of them all: Earth,” he added.
“With more than eight out of every 10 living species awaiting
discovery, I am shocked by our ignorance of our very own planet and in
awe at the diversity, beauty and complexity of the biosphere and its
inhabitants.”
Describing the discoveries
Lilliputian Violet
Viola lilliputana
Country: Peru
Tiny violet: Not only is the Lilliputian
violet among the smallest violets in the world, it is also one of the
most diminutive terrestrial dicots. Known only from a single locality in
an Intermontane Plateau of the high Andes of Peru, Viola lilliputana
lives in the dry puna grassland eco-region. Specimens were first
collected in the 1960s, but the species was not described as new until
2012. The entire above-ground portion of the plant is barely 1
centimeter tall. Named, obviously, for the race of little people on the
island of Lilliput in Jonathan Swift’s "Gulliver’s Travels."
Lyre Sponge
Chondrocladia lyra
Country: NE Pacific Ocean; USA: California
Carnivorous sponge: A spectacular, large,
harp- or lyre-shaped carnivorous sponge discovered in deep waters
(averaging 3,399 meters) of the northeast Pacific Ocean, off the coast
of California. The harp-shaped structures, or vanes, number from two to
six and each has more than 20 parallel vertical branches, often capped
by an expanded, balloon-like, terminal ball. This unusual form maximizes
the surface area of the sponge for contact and capture of planktonic
prey.
Lesula Monkey
Cercopithecus lomamiensis
Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Old World monkey: Discovered in the
Lomami Basin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the lesula is an
Old World monkey well known to locals but newly known to science. This
is only the second species of monkey discovered in Africa over the past
28 years. Scientists first saw the monkey as a captive juvenile in 2007.
Researchers describe the shy lesula as having human-like eyes. More
easily heard than seen, the monkeys perform a booming dawn chorus. Adult
males have a large, bare patch of skin on the buttocks, testicles and
perineum that is colored a brilliant blue. Although the forests where
the monkeys live are remote, the species is hunted for bush meat and its
status is vulnerable.
No to the Mine! Snake
Sibon noalamina
Country: Panama
Snail-eating snake: A beautiful new
species of snail-eating snake has been discovered in the highland
rainforests of western Panama. The snake is nocturnal and hunts
soft-bodied prey including earthworms and amphibian eggs, in addition to
snails and slugs. This harmless snake defends itself by mimicking the
alternating dark and light rings of venomous coral snakes. The species
is found in the SerranÃa de Tabasará mountain range where ore mining is
degrading and diminishing its habitat. The species name is derived from
the Spanish phrase “No a la mina” or “No to the mine.”
A Smudge on Paleolithic Art
Ochroconis lascauxensis
Country: France
Fungus: In 2001, black stains began to
appear on the walls of Lascaux Cave in France. By 2007, the stains were
so prevalent they became a major concern for the conservation of
precious rock art at the site that dates back to the Upper Paleolithic.
An outbreak of a white fungus, Fusarium solani, had been successfully
treated when just a few months later, black staining fungi appeared. The
genus Ochroconis primarily includes fungi that occur in the
soil and are associated with the decomposition of plant matter. While
the two new species isolated from Lascaux are so far known to be
harmless, at least one species of the group, O. gallopava, causes diseases in humans with compromised immune systems.
World’s Smallest Vertebrate
Paedophryne amanuensis
Country: New Guinea
Tiny frog: Living vertebrates – animals
that have a backbone or spinal column – range in size from this tiny new
species of frog, as small as 7 millimeters, to the blue whale,
measuring 25.8 meters. The new frog was discovered near Amau village in
Papua, New Guinea. It captures the title of ‘smallest living vertebrate’
from a tiny Southeast Asian cyprinid fish that claimed the record in
2006. The adult frog size, determined by averaging the lengths of both
males and females, is only 7.7 millimeters. With a few exceptions, this
and other ultra-small frogs are associated with moist leaf litter in
tropical wet forests – suggesting a unique ecological guild that could
not exist under drier circumstances.
Endangered Forest
Eugenia petrikensis
Country: Madagascar
Endangered shrub: Eugenia is a large,
worldwide genus of woody evergreen trees and shrubs of the myrtle family
that is particularly diverse in South America, New Caledonia and
Madagascar. The new species, E. petrikensis, is a shrub growing to 2
meters with emerald green, slightly glossy foliage and beautiful, dense
clusters of small magenta flowers. It is one of seven new species
described from the littoral forest of eastern Madagascar and is
considered to be an endangered species. It is the latest evidence of the
unique and numerous species found in this specialized, humid forest
that grows on sandy substrate within kilometers of the shoreline. Once
forming a continuous band 1,600 kilometers long, the littoral forest has
been reduced to isolated, vestigial fragments under pressure from human
populations.
Lightning Roaches?
Lucihormetica luckae
Country: Ecuador
Glow-in-the-dark cockroach: Luminescence
among terrestrial animals is rather rare and best known among several
groups of beetles – fireflies and certain click beetles in particular –
as well as cave-inhabiting fungus gnats. Since the first discovery of a
luminescent cockroach in 1999, more than a dozen species have (pardon
the pun) “come to light.” All are rare, and interestingly, so far found
only in remote areas far from light pollution. The latest addition to
this growing list is L. luckae, that may be endangered or possibly
already extinct. This cockroach is known from a single specimen
collected 70 years ago from an area heavily impacted by the eruption of
the Tungurahua volcano. The species may be most remarkable because the
size and placement of its lamps suggest that it is using light to mimic
toxic luminescent click beetles.
No Social Butterfly
Semachrysa jade
Country: Malaysia
Social media lacewing: In a trend-setting
collision of science and social media, Hock Ping Guek photographed a
beautiful green lacewing with dark markings at the base of its wings in a
park near Kuala Lumpur and shared his photo on Flickr. Shaun Winterton,
an entomologist with the California Department of Food and Agriculture,
serendipitously saw the image and recognized the insect as unusual.
When Guek was able to collect a specimen, it was sent to Stephen Brooks
at London’s Natural History Museum who confirmed its new species status.
The three joined forces and prepared a description using Google Docs.
In this triumph for citizen science, talents from around the globe
collaborated by using new media in making the discovery. The lacewing is
not named for its color — rather for Winterton’s daughter, Jade.
Hanging Around in the Jurassic
Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia
Country: China
Hangingfly fossil: Living species of
hangingflies can be found, as the name suggests, hanging beneath foliage
where they capture other insects as food. They are a lineage of
scorpionflies characterized by their skinny bodies, two pairs of narrow
wings and long, threadlike legs. A new fossil species, Juracimbrophlebia
ginkgofolia, has been found along with preserved leaves of a
gingko-like tree, Yimaia capituliformis, in Middle Jurassic deposits in
the Jiulongshan Formation in China’s Inner Mongolia. The two look so
similar that they are easily confused in the field and represent a rare
example of an insect mimicking a gymnosperm 165 million years ago,
before an explosive radiation of flowering plants.
Why create a top 10 new species list?
Arizona State University’s International Institute for
Species Exploration announces the top 10 new species list each year as
part of its public awareness campaign to bring attention to biodiversity
and the field of taxonomy.
“Sustainable biodiversity means assuring the survival of
as many and as diverse species as possible so that ecosystems are
resilient to whatever stresses they face in the future. Scientists will
need access to as much evidence of evolutionary history as possible,”
said the institute’s Wheeler, who is also a professor in ASU’s School of
Life Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and in the
School of Sustainability, as well as a senior sustainability scientist
with the Global Institute of Sustainability.
“All of our hopes and dreams for conservation hinge upon
saving millions of species that we cannot recognize and know nothing
about,” Wheeler added. “No investment makes more sense than completing a
simple inventory to the establish baseline data that tells us what
kinds of plants and animals exist and where. Until we know what species
already exist, it is folly to expect we will make the right decisions to
assure the best possible outcome for the pending biodiversity crisis.”
Additionally, the announcement is made on or near May 23
to honor Linnaeus. Since he initiated the modern system for naming
plants and animals, nearly two million species have been named,
described and classified. Excluding unknown millions of microbes,
scientists estimate there are between 10 and 12 million living species.
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