How do you know when you’ve discovered a new species?
THERE is a perception that discovering new species was something that happened in the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s – when new areas, even continents, were first being explored by western science.
But the age of discovery is not over – indeed, some groups of animals are being described at a faster rate now than ever before.
There are two broad ways we discover new species – you find something obviously new, usually in some exciting remote spot that few have explored before; or you find something in the field or museum collections that looks similar to another known species, but has attributes that make you think it’s something different.
The second way is the most common way new species are discovered these days, helped by our advances in genetics research. For example, it was previously thought that North Queensland’s nursery frogs were all one species, but detailed research using genetics, morphology (appearance), and mating call revealed there are actually three distinct species.
Genetics is a big part of species discovery these days. For example, someone might do a genetic study on a really widespread species, the results of which might indicate that this “single” species is actually two or more distinct species.
Genetic analysis will often then be followed by looking at morphology to find characters that can be used to tell these species apart. Discovering new species is more than a cataloguing exercise, it is essential to conserving biodiversity. Putting a name on species is the foundation of conservation – it creates the units and lists we recognise for purposes such as threatened species conservation or managing fish stocks.
And defining species means we then know where they live, how many individuals there are, and what sort of threats they face. It’s impossible to conserve what you don’t know.