New Species are Everywhere

There is so much concern about what we are losing in the natural world that we sometimes forget an important story: how much we are still discovering.

The 1990s saw more new mammal species described than any decade since the 1920s. The rate of discovery of new birds and fishes has essentially held steady in the last few decades, and the rates for reptiles, amphibians, and insects and other small invertebrates have increased dramatically.

Some examples:
A new leaf-warbler, not yet named, is now known from Vietnam.

A beautiful new species of black coral (Antipathes dendrochristos) was identified in the Pacific just off Los Angeles.

An earlier post mentioned Rungwecebus kipunji, a new species and genus of
African macaque.

New crustaceans and other invertebrates turned up in a new cave in
Israel.

Speaking of cave species, a graduate student and a National Park Service researcher have found an unusual new genus of cave cricket in Arizona, along with several other species.

Six new frogs hopped up in
Laos.

And three new lemurs were identified in
Madagascar.

Then there's a newly described shark from the
Gulf of California.

Finally, the prize of 2006 so far may be (Orcaella heinsohni, the
Austalian snubfin dolphin.


Not every new animal is big and spectacular (although some of those do still turn up). The point, though, is that we do not know all the species of the world. Indeed, we may not know half the larger ones, and we probably know only a few percent of the smallest. Exploration, discovery, and description are as alive and vital in 2006 as they were a century ago.