Notable names in biodiversity
Rare great ape, extinct lion and towering tree make Top 10 list of discovered creatures.
A rare great ape, an extinct lion and a towering tree make the Top 10 list of newly discovered species.
The highest branches of a Brazilian forest. The permanent darkness of a cave in China. The deepest place on Earth.
Life has carved niches for itself in the most extreme and stunning habitats. As a result, it has taken on surprising — and just plain weird — physical attributes and behaviors.
In celebration of this biodiversity, the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry has compiled a list of the Top 10 new species that were described by science in the previous year:
Mysterious protist
Ancoracysta twista Location: Unknown Researchers discovered the protist living on a brain coral in a tropical aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. The organism propels itself with a whip-like tail, called a flagella, and uses unusual harpoon-like structures to stun and consume other protists.
The cell’s geographic and genetic origins puzzled its discoverers. A. twista does not fit with any known group of organisms. Instead, it appears to belong to an early lineage of eukaryote that was previously unknown.
A lonely giant
Dinizia jueirana-facao Location: Brazil These massive trees stand up to 130 feet above the canopy of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, producing woody fruits that grow over a foot long. A member of the legume family, this 62-ton giant is found only in and near the Reserva Natural Vale in Espirito Santo, Brazil. With just 25 known trees, the species is considered critically endangered.
The tree’s sister species, D. excelsa, was discovered almost 100 years ago. In September, scientists described the smaller D. jueirana-facao as a distinct species.
Unique shrimp
Epimeria quasimodo Location: Southern Ocean
Last year, scientists found 26 new species of tiny crustaceans in the Southern Ocean off Antarctica. These amphipods are famous for their bright colors, spines and variety. But one species stood out for its humped back which reminded scientists of Quasimodo of Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.” E. quasimodo is about 2 inches long.
A hitchhiking beetle
Nymphister kronaueri Location: Costa Rica This tiny beetle takes camouflage to another level.
Nymphister kronaueri evolved a set of traits that allow it to live among a particular species of army ant in Costa Rica. Army ants are nomadic, spending a few weeks in one place before migrating for about three weeks to new territory. When they move, so do the beetles. That’s when their mimicry comes into play.
The beetle, only 1.5 millimeters long, has the shape, size and color of the abdomen of a worker ant. N. kronaueri uses its tiny mandibles to clamp down on its host’s abdomen as the ants embark on their journey.
A new great ape
Pongo tapanuliensis Location: Sumatra, Indonesia
The great ape family welcomed an eighth member in 2017: Tapanuli orangutans.
In 2013, researchers compared the skull of an adult male Sumatran orangutan killed by humans with 34 others. Last year, they announced that they had found enough subtle differences to believe this individual belonged to a distinct species. Tapanulis, named for the region of the island in which they’re found, live in the southern range limit of Sumatran orangutans. About 800 individuals exist in a small, fragmented habitat.
About 674,000 years ago, orangutans on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo split into separate species. However, the Sumatran species diverged about 3.38 million years ago.
Deep-dwelling f ish
Pseudoliparis swirei Location: Western Pacific Ocean
Plenty of surprises still lurk in the deep ocean.
Researchers exploring the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth, found large numbers of weird, tadpole-like fish swarming their mackerelbaited traps. This translucent snailfish was recorded 5 miles below the surface of the ocean, making it the deepest-dwelling fish in the world. Scientists believe the 5-mile mark represents a physiological limit below which most fish can’t survive.
Despite measuring just 4 inches in length, the Mariana snailfish is the top predator in its habitat, the researchers observed.
An unusual f lower
Sciaphila sugimotoi Location: Ishigaki Island, Japan
Among Japan’s welldocumented flora, one unusual flower eluded science until now.
In September and October, Sciaphila sugimotoi produces delicate magenta blossoms in only two locations in Ishigaki’s humid forest. The plant lives symbiotically with a fungus, which provides it with the energy it needs to survive.
About 50 plants make up the critically endangered species, researchers said.
A bacterial eruption
Thiolava veneris Location: Canary Islands In 2011, the underwater volcano Tagoro erupted and wiped out much of the ecosystem off the coast of El Hierro in the Canary Islands. Three years later, a strange new bacteria was the first organism to recolonize the area.
Dubbed “Venus’s hair” for its long, hair-like structures, the proteobacteria grew to almost half an acre and covered Tagoro’s summit with a white mat. The colony, scientists suggest, represents the start of a new ecosystem 430 feet below the surface of the ocean.
A marsupial lion
Wakaleo schouteni Location: Australia About 23 million years ago, a lion the size of a Siberian husky roamed the Australian forest. It ate meat and plants, and spent part of its days in the trees.
Fossilized remains of the marsupial were unearthed in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area in Queensland. W. schouteni was one of two marsupial lions that existed toward the end of the late Oligocene Epoch 25 million years ago. In the subsequent Miocene, species of the genus Wakaleo, or little lions, grew larger in an evolutionary chain reaction: Prey animals got bigger as plant life changed in response to a drier, cooler continent.
Cave-adapted beetle
Xuedytes bellus Location: China More than 130 species of cave-dwelling ground beetles have been discovered in China’s Guangxi province, the latest being Xuedytes bellus. Researchers marvel at how “extremely caveadapted” the beetle appears, with its long head and neck and slender body.
Beetles that evolve in the darkness of caves often take on a similar set of characteristics, including narrow bodies, spider-like appendages and loss of wings, eyes and color.