New species all over

"Marbled crayfish are a globally expanding population of parthenogenetically reproducing freshwater decapods."  
OK, that's almost scary. It sounds like an old science fiction movie. However, not science fiction, just science, one of the never-ending rush of new species of all types.  The crayfish ranks, for example, added these two from Indonesia,among many others in the past year.  
The big splash of the last couple of years (yea, I'm cheating by expanding the timeline) was the Tapanuli organutan, a population of several hundred orangs in northern Sumatra overlooked until 1997, then identified in 2017 as a separate species.  They are highly endangered, which unfortunately is not a big surprise.  A Chinese-run company's new dam will rip up a good portion of the animals' habitat. Pongo tapanuliensis is the third species of orangutan. Dr. Marina Davila-Ross, who co-authored the description, remarked, “I was surprised about the extent to which the Tapanuli orangutans differed genetically, morphologically as well as behaviorally from the Sumatran and Bornean orangutans."  Alas, the other two she mentioned are not in any better shape, conservation-wise. 
You'd think the heavily populated modern nations are about picked over, but even where new species seem unlikely, they are not unheard of.  This recap by the BBC on the finds of naturalist Steve Trewhella notes a new wasp (2014) worms, etc., among other critters, in the UK.  In the U.S., a charmingly named new slug (Hemphillia skadei) - Skade being the daughter of the two Idaho biologists who turned it up.  The year 2017 brought a real rarity for the U.S., a new bird, also from Idaho, a crossbill named  Loxia curvirostra (for a curved beak used for probing into pine cones for seeds( by ecologist Craig Benkman.  

Crossbills occur over most of the world, and there are many species, but the most poetic thing about them, is, well, this poem, by Longfellow.

The Legend of the Crossbill

On the cross the dying Saviour

Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm,

Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling

In his pierced and bleeding palm.

And by all the world forsaken,

Sees he how with zealous care

At the ruthless nail of iron

A little bird is striving there.

Stained with blood and never tiring,

With its beak it doth not cease

From the cross 't would free the Saviour,

Its Creator's Son release.

And the Saviour speaks in mildness:

'Blest be thou of all the good!

Bear, as token of this moment,

Marks of blood and holy rood!'

And that bird is called the crossbill;

Covered all with blood so clear,

In the groves of pine it singeth

Songs, like legends, strange to hear.