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Topic: New Species Thread Posted: 19-Dec-2007 at 07:45
With a pile of new species being discovered each week, I thought it was necessary that we dedicate a thread to it, rather than creating a new one each time. So, feel free to share new finds, accompanied by newspaper articles or information on the new species if possible. It'd be great to see comments on each find. If this becomes a regular thing it could be stickied.
I'll get the ball rolling with a recent lot of discoveries in Papua New Guinea.
A giant rodent five times the size of a common rat has been discovered in the mountainous jungles of New Guinea.
The 1.4kg Mallomys giant rat is one of two species of
mammal thought to be new to science documented on an expedition to an
area described as a "lost world".
Conservationists also found a pygmy possum - one of the
world's smallest marsupials - on the trip to the remote north of Papua
province, Indonesia.
Both are currently being studied to establish whether they are new species.
Scientists on the trip, organised by Conservation
International (CI), also recorded the mating displays of several rare
birds for the first time.
"It's comforting to know that there is a place on Earth
so isolated that it remains the absolute realm of wild nature," said
Bruce Beehler, who led the expedition.
Old friends
The trip was the second time that CI had visited the
Foja Mountains, part of the Mamberamo Basin, the largest pristine
tropical forest in the Asia Pacific region.
Scientists are studying the possum to confirm if it is new to science
In 2005, the area was dubbed a "lost world" after scientists discovered dozens of new plants and animals in the dense jungle.
During the most recent trip, in June of this year,
scientists accompanied by a film crew managed to capture courtship
displays of the golden-fronted bowerbird (Amblyornis flavifrons) and of the black sicklebill bird of paradise (Epimachus fastuosus).
They also recorded the wattled smoky honeyeater (Melipotes carolae), documented for the first time on the 2005 expedition and known only from the Foja Mountains.
The bird, with a bright orange patch on its face, was
then the first new bird species to be sighted on the island of New
Guinea in more than 60 years.
The team also captured an old friend on film - the "lost" Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise (Parotia berlepschi).
The iridescent gold-breasted bird was "rediscovered" in
2005 by CI experts after 20 years without a confirmed sighting by a
western scientist.
However, the most surprising finds of the trip were the
two new species of mammal - the Cercarteus pygmy possum and Mallomys
giant rat.
"The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical
city rat," said Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D.C.
"With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip."
While Australia is usually seen as the hotspot for Marsupials, it is becoming ever apparent that places like New Guinea and South America have their fair share of Marsupials too. I'd be interested to see how closely related they think this pygmy possum is to Australia's pygmy possums.
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Posted: 21-Dec-2007 at 06:34
Fascinating, a great idea for a thread Knights!
Originally posted by Knights
black sicklebill bird of paradise
I distinctly recall watching a clip showing the mating habits of a rare bird that, if I'm not mistaken, was a bird of paradise on Planet Earth, I can't remember if it was a black sicklebill or not... *waits for knights informative reply*
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Posted: 21-Dec-2007 at 12:55
I think I know the one you are thinking off - the one my friend and I dubbed "the billboard bird". A black BOP (Bird of Paradise) that to impress the ladies makes a billboard shape with its wings, with a blue smiley face on it.
The Black Sickle Bill is a rather larger bird with more elongated features - bill and tail. Below is an image of a female, and then of a male during courtship display:
Back to the billboard board, or more correctly, I believe, the Superb BOP. This image is taken from the Planet Earth footage and gives a good picture of the rather bland female and the extravagant male:
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Posted: 22-Dec-2007 at 00:56
New species, huh? Well, i don't know what you might think of this site, but it does seem to have loads of info on new species or anything to do with zoology, and in most cases... crypto-zoology. In this case, poison dart frogs:
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/new-poison-darts/
Two new species of frog, both so-called poison dart frogs because they are the colorful variety possessing toxics used by native peoples on the arrows of their darts, have been located in Colombia. Specifically, they were found in the Central Cordillera of Colombia by Alonso Quevedo from ProAves and Oscar Gallego from Tolima University.
The frogs, just formally announced, were first discovered in July, 2006, when the research team was looking for endangered bird species in the Central Mountain Range.
The new frogs have been given the names Ranitomeya tolimense and Ranitomeya doriswansoni.
Ranitomeya doriswansoni is black and red.
Ranitomeya tolimense is mostly yellow and has a short fifth toe.
The article announcing their discovery was published on November 14, 2007 by Zootaxa Magazine and summarized in the English magazine, Wildlife Extra, in December.
I'm not really a frog person, but still thought this was rather interesting.
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Posted: 22-Dec-2007 at 01:56
Great news. Taxonomists must be having a field day with all these new species. Among many of the new species discovered of late, there is a new type of butterfly in the Andes.
New species of butterfly discovered by Andes expedition
By Amol Rajan
Published: 20 December 2007
A team of explorers led by scientists from the Natural History Museum
in London has discovered an entirely new species of butterfly in South
America.
The
medium-sized, coffee-coloured insect with eyespots on its hind wings
was discovered during the first manned exploration of a remote section
on the northern tip of the Andes mountain range.
Idioneurula donegani was hailed as "an amazing discovery" by Blanca
Huertas, the butterfly curator at the Natural History Museum, who led
the expedition to the peaks of Colombia's Serrania de los Yariguies
range.
"Discovery of unseen species of insect are more common than with
many other types of animal," she said. "But for any biologist it's
exhilarating to find an entirely new species especially one that
survives in environments where you wouldn't expect to find them."
Speaking to The Independent yesterday, Ms Huertes refused to be
drawn on whether another apparently new species of insect her team
discovered on the expedition was also a butterfly. "Further tests have
to be carried out before we can be certain that we have another species
of insect as well," she said. "But I'm hopeful." If, following
examination, the second specimen is also found to constitute an
entirely new species of butterfly, the twin find will signal a major
breakthrough in scientific understanding of the winged creatures
worldwide.
"What's so fabulous about this discovery is that we would never have
imagined butterflies could survive at this sort of altitude," said Ms
Huertes. "Obviously when you enter unseen areas you have hopes of
making exciting discoveries, but this surpasses our expectations. It
means butterflies can be far more resilient and adaptable than we might
have previously thought."
Although the terrain is filled with ferns, orchids and palms, it was
thought to be highly unlikely that butterflies could thrive that far
above sea-level.
There are more than 20,000 known species of butterfly, 40 per cent
of which live in South America. The most recent discovery is not found
anywhere else in the world.
The discoveries came during an expedition by an Anglo-Colombian team
to the remotest heights of the Andes Mountains an area thought never
to have been visited by humans before. After being taken by helicopter
to an isolated peak more than 3,000m high, the team trekked through
difficult conditions for more than a week.
The survey of the remote area led instantly to the creation of a
national park by the Colombian government, which has come under
sustained pressure in recent years from environmental groups that are
concerned by the effects of rapid industrialisation on threatened
species in the region.
"Butterflies and other insects have been in great danger throughout
the continent," said Ms Huertes. "The cattle and crop farming that's
been driving South America's agricultural growth has also been
threatening to drive some species off the map."
Last year, the same Anglo-Colombian team, also led by Ms Huertes,
was responsible for the discovery of the Yariguies brush finch, a
fist-sized, multi-coloured bird named after the Indian tribe that once
inhabited that area.
The announcement of their latest discovery comes only days after
scientists in New Guinea announced the discovery of two mammalian
species. A giant rat five times the size of its common cousin, and a
pygmy possum thought to be one of the world's smallest marsupials were
both found in a region long described by scientists as a "lost world".
I know a bit about frogs, but butterflies -as with most invertebrates- are quite a blank spot for me. There is always more to learn, and with new species like this appearing in such copious numbers, the knowledge is exponential!
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Posted: 31-Dec-2007 at 00:30
I think it would be important to note that most of the animals being discovered are actually small creatures in relatively remote locations farther out of the reach of humans than most. I wouldn't be surprised that a species of small insect or amphibian or mammal is lurking under a log somewhere where no one has yet turned a shovel or laid a cinderblock. All the more reason not to expect life on Earth to just up and die, so long as we don't seek to exterminate it.
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Posted: 03-Jan-2008 at 16:50
New species can also be formed from interbreeding. Did anybody else see that History Channel show where it talked about Stalin trying to create an army of apemen from spliced genes of chimps and humans?
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Posted: 06-Jan-2008 at 22:31
No I haven't seen that programme Ponce, but I have read a bit about some of Stalin's whacky ideas - that being one of them.
Here are some more updates for those interested, on new species discoveries. The first is in a remote region of PNG, the Foji Mountains. This previously uncharted or explored land just shows how there are still parts of the world untouched by humans. Many new species and biological information has come out of the expedition - it's amazing. I'd love to do something like this one day...
An international team of scientists says it has found a "lost world"
in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of new animal and plant
species.
"It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the group.
The team recorded new butterflies, frogs, and a series
of remarkable plants that included five new palms and a giant
rhododendron flower.
The survey also found a honeyeater bird that was previously unknown to science.
It's beautiful, untouched, unpopulated forest; there's no evidence of human impact or presence
Dr Bruce Beehler, Conservation International
The research group - from the US, Indonesia and Australia - trekked
through an area in the mist-shrouded Foja Mountains, located just north
of the vast Mamberamo Basin of north-western (Indonesian) New Guinea.
The researchers spent nearly a month in the locality,
detailing the wildlife and plant life from the lower hills to near the
summit of the Foja range, which reaches more than 2,000m in elevation.
"It's beautiful, untouched, unpopulated forest; there's
no evidence of human impact or presence up in these mountains," Dr
Beehler told the BBC News website.
FOJA MOUNTAINS SURVEY
See more of the plants and animals found by the team
"We were dropped in by helicopter. There's not a trail anywhere; it was really hard to get around."
He said that even two local indigenous groups, the
Kwerba and Papasena people, customary landowners of the forest who
accompanied the scientists, were astonished at the area's isolation.
"The men from the local villages came with us and they
made it clear that no one they knew had been anywhere near this area -
not even their ancestors," Mr Beehler said.
Unafraid of humans
One of the team's most remarkable discoveries was a
honeyeater bird with a bright orange patch on its face - the first new
bird species to be sighted on the island of New Guinea in more than 60
years.
The researchers also solved a major ornithological
mystery - the location of the homeland of Berlepsch's six-wired bird of
paradise.
First described in the late 19th Century through specimens collected by
indigenous hunters from an unknown location on New Guinea, the species
had been the focus of several subsequent expeditions that failed to
find it.
On only the second day of the team's expedition, the
amazed scientists watched as a male Berlepsch's bird of paradise
performed a mating dance for an attending female in the field camp.
It was the first time a live male of the species had
been observed by Western scientists, and proved that the Foja Mountains
was the species' true home.
"This bird had been filed away and forgotten; it had
been lost. To rediscover it was, for me, in some ways, more exciting
than finding the honeyeater. I spent 20 years working on birds of
paradise; they're pretty darn sexy beasts," Dr Beehler enthused.
The team also recorded a golden-mantled tree kangaroo, which was previously thought to have been hunted to near-extinction.
Mr Beehler said some of the creatures the team came into contact with were remarkably unafraid of humans.
Two long-beaked echidnas, primitive egg-laying mammals,
even allowed scientists to pick them up and bring them back to their
camp to be studied, he added.
The December 2005 expedition was organised by the
US-based organisation Conservation International, together with the
Indonesian Institute of Sciences.
The team says it did not have nearly enough time during
its expedition to survey the area completely and intends to return
later in the year.
The locality lies within a protected zone and Dr Beehler believes its future is secure in the short term.
"The key investment is the local communities. Their
knowledge, appreciation and oral traditions are so important. They are
the forest stewards who will look after these assets," Dr Beehler told
the BBC.
A summary of the team's main discoveries:
A new species of honeyeater, the first new bird species discovered on the island of New Guinea since 1939
The formerly unknown breeding grounds of a "lost" bird of paradise - the six-wired bird of paradise (Parotia berlepschi)
First photographs of the golden-fronted bowerbird displaying at its bower.
A new large mammal for Indonesia, the golden-mantled tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus pulcherrimus)
More than 20 new species of frogs, including a tiny microhylid frog less than 14mm long
A series of previously undescribed plant species, including five new species of palms
A remarkable white-flowered rhododendron with flower about 15cm across
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Posted: 17-Jan-2008 at 16:01
I don't know if this is the right place for this, since it's an extinct species, but CNN reports that they've found the fossil of a ten-foot-long rat. Awesome!
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Posted: 17-Jan-2008 at 23:16
Thanks Alex. It certainly is the place for it - this is for newly discovered species, dead or alive (or in fossil form). 1 ton of rodent would have any modern Capybara for a snack!
I today had a small chance to read that a new species of Cobra had been discovered in Africa. Reportedly the largest (nearly 3 m) and most poisonous of cobras, these were previously thought as part of some other cobra species but now scientists discovered they were of a new kind.
It makes me wonder what I can actually find out in Russian lessons (ok, I was reading a magazine a friend had brought from home but still)...
I don't know if this is the right place for this, since it's an extinct species, but CNN reports that they've found the fossil of a ten-foot-long rat. Awesome!
CNN screws up again. It's not actually a rat. Rodent, yes.
Scientists: Extinct Rodent Weighed a Ton
In this image released in London Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008 by the Royal Society, an artist'...
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, AP Thu Jan 17, 7:10 PM EST
Eeek! Imagine a rodent that weighed a ton and was as big as a bull. Uruguayan scientists say they have uncovered fossil evidence of the biggest species of rodent ever found, one that scurried across wooded areas of South America about 4 million years ago, when the continent was not connected to North America.
A herbivore, the beast may have been a contemporary, and possibly prey, of saber-toothed cats a prehistoric version of Tom and Jerry.
For those afraid of rodents, forget hopping on a chair. Its huge skull, more than 20 inches long, suggested a beast more than eight feet long and weighing between 1,700 and 3,000 pounds.
Although British newspapers variously described it as a mouse or a rat, researchers say the animal, named Josephoartigasia monesi, actually was more closely related to a guinea pig or porcupine.
"These are totally different from the rats and mice we're accustomed to," said Bruce Patterson, the curator of mammals at the Field Museum in Chicago, adding that it was the biggest rodent he had ever heard of.
An artist's rendering showed a creature that looked like a cross between a hippopotamus and guinea pig.
The fossil was found in 1987 about 65 miles west of the capital of Montevideo, near the vast River Plate estuary a muddy waterway separating Uruguay from Argentina that empties into the South Atlantic. That area is site of ancient riverbanks and other deposits where fossils have been found, he said.
An Argentine fossil collector identified as Sergio Viera donated the skull to Uruguay's National History and Anthropology Museum nearly two decades ago, said museum director Arturo Toscano.
It spent years hidden away in a box at the museum and was rediscovered by curator Andres Rinderknecht, who enlisted the help of fellow researcher Ernesto Blanco to study it.
Blanco told The Associated Press he was shocked when he first came face to face with the fossil, saying it looked even bigger than a cow skull.
"It's a beautiful piece of nature," he said in an interview. "You feel the power of a very big animal behind this."
Blanco said the skull's shape and the huge incisors left no doubt they were dealing with a rodent, but he cautioned that the estimate of the animal's bulk was imprecise.
The extinct rodent clearly outclassed its nearest rival, the Phoberomys, found in Venezuela and estimated to weigh between 880 and 1,500 pounds.
Blanco said the rodent was far more enormous than any South American rodent alive today, surpassing even the present-day capibara that can weigh up to 110 pounds.
He said the animal's teeth pointed to a diet of aquatic plants.
"From what we can tell, we know it was a herbivore that lived on the shores of rivers or alongside streams in woodland areas," Rinderknecht told the AP. "Possibly it had a behavior similar to other water-faring rodents that exist today, such as beavers, which split their time between land and water."
But he said the rodent appears to have had no tail, adding that follow-up studies are being planned to better determine its diet and other traits.
The creature may have been a contemporary to the saber-toothed cats and giant carnivorous birds that roamed the area millions of years ago, but Blanco said it was not clear whether such predators had the power necessary to bring down the huge beast.
"This investigation began about a year and a half ago but it's still not complete," Rinderknecht said, adding that the next step may be a CT scan of the skull "to better determine its interior dimensions."
The research by Rinderknecht and Blanco was published Wednesday in this week's issue of biological research journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Scientists uninvolved with the finding agreed that this was one really big rodent.
"I think it's a very important discovery it is certainly an immense animal," said Mary Dawson, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. She said it and other rodents grew bigger by filling the ecological niche taken elsewhere by rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses.
"They got large taking the role of some herbivores that were not present at that time South America was still an island continent," she said. But when North and South America were linked about 3 million years ago, the rodents were swamped by North American animals and eventually died out.
"It's too bad they're extinct, I'd love to see those things," she said.
Patterson said its discovery gave scientists more insight into the fauna of the prehistoric South American continent, when it hosted creatures such as marsupial predators and hoofed animals known to scientists as archaic ungulates.
"These were things with trunks on their noses, huge claws on their hands, they look like somebody just made them up," he said.
Little trace of big rodent is left. Its closest surviving cousin, the pacarana, is endangered. The sharp-clawed 33-pound rodent lives in the hills around the Andes Mountains. It is considered among the largest living rodents, but its slow rate of reproduction and reputation among humans as a tasty treat means its prospects are grim.
Blanco said he was thrilled with the discovery of the huge rodent after so many years.
"When you start to open all these boxes, often times you find all kinds interesting pieces of paleontology," he said.
"The collector alerted us that it was an important fossil," Toscano said, adding that the skull remains carefully packed in a box in the museum's paleontology collection.
Both Blanco and Toscano said they hoped the find would attract more resources to museums in the developing world such as Uruguay's which is so strapped for cash it has been unable to hold public exhibitions since 2000.
___
Associated Press writers Raul Garces and Alfonso Castiglia contributed to the report from Montevideo, Uruguay.
___
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Posted: 19-Jan-2008 at 07:40
these were discovered in the 1994 so still quite new, also quite large
The Giant Muntjac (muntiacus vuquangensis) was
discovered in 1994 in evergreen forests of the Truong Son mountains
(formerly the Annamite Mountains) that border Lao People's Democratic
Republic and Vietnam.
Although the species was thought to be
impacted by hunting and los of habitat, a threatened listing could not
be given, because there was little information on population size and
the extent of occurrence.
One of the most recently discovered large mammals, the saola excited a flurry
of scientific interest due to its unique characteristics, including its long
horns and unique facial glands. Its discovery required the creation
of a new genus, and considerable controversy raged as to the evolutionary
affinities of Pseudoryx. Based on morphological characters,
various authors have allied the saola with the subfamily Bovinae (including
it in each of the three tribes: Boselaphini (nilgai and chousingha), Bovini
(cattle and buffalo), and Tragelaphini (spiral-horned antelope)) and the
subfamily Caprinae (specifically the Rupicaprini, closest to serows and gorals)
(Schaller and Rabinowitz, 1995). Genetic analysis (based on mitochondrial
DNA and rRNA genes) by Hassanin and Douzery (1999) appears to have set the
debate to rest: Pseudoryx is strongly nested within the subfamily
Bovinae. While these authors suggest that the saola should be
placed within the tribe Bovini, the current consensus is to place
Pseudoryx in its own tribe - Pseudorygini
But seriously, I read recently about a newly discovered species of Palm tree that has some very strange reproduction patterns.. Its really worth a read. The top link has more info, the BBC version is a synopsis.
Botanists have discovered a new species of giant self-destructing palm on the island of Madagascar.
The tree, described as the nation's largest palm species, is unlike anything else ever found on the island before, say scientists.
Although villagers knew of its existence, none had witnessed the tree in flower.
When this finally happened last year, botanists found that the tree spent so much energy flowering that it died.
'Spectacular'
The palm is 20m (60ft) high with leaves 5m (16ft) long, the tallest tree of its type in the country; but for most of its life - around 100 years - it appears fairly unremarkable apart from its size.
It was only when botanists from Kew Gardens in London, UK, were told of its extraordinary flowering pattern that they began to be interested.
Madagascar is home to more than 10,000 plant species
"It's spectacular," says Mijoro Rakotoarinivo, who works with Kew and has seen the tree.
"At first there's only a very long shoot like asparagus from the top of the tree and then, a few weeks later, this unique shoot starts to spread.
"At the end of this process you can have something like a Christmas tree."
'To be protected'
The branches then become covered with hundreds of tiny flowers, which are pollinated and turn into fruit; but the tree expends so much energy on flowering that it eventually collapses and dies.
The tree has been named Tahina spectabilis, which is Malagasy for "blessed" or "to be protected".
It is also one of the given names of Anne-Tahina Metz, the daughter of Xavier Metz, who discovered the palm two years ago.
Scientists have identified 92 individual trees, all confined to the same remote area.
Dr John Dransfield, who announced the name of the tree in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, is baffled as to how it came to be in the country.
It bears a resemblance to a species of palm found in regions of Asia, 6,000km away.
It is possible that the palm has quietly gone through a remarkable evolution since Madagascar split with India some 80 million years ago.
It is now hoped that the plant will be conserved and that selling seeds can generate revenue for people living nearby, as well as allowing gardeners across the world to own their very own self-destructing Malagasy palm tree.
Madagascar is home to more than 10,000 plant species, 90% of which occur nowhere else in the world. These include 170 known species of palm.
Whereas the website is a bit on the 'descriptive' side to say the least, it gives a handy puffin version of natural discoveries..Here's another on anew species of bat discovered lately.
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Posted: 21-Jan-2008 at 03:22
Dolphin - you know how you said we read the same news? We so do! Not only the Snow Leopard one, but I was also reading that one about the Palm Tree which is puzzling Botanists! Spooky stuff. Thanks for the sites also.
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