Researchers name over 100 new species

Australia’s national science agency has revealed that it named and described more than 100 new species over the last year in a “win for biodiversity”. Researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, or CSIRO, in Canberra, identified 139 new species and described them in scientific journals over the last 12 months. The tally consists of 131 insects and invertebrates, four fish, three plants and one frog species. Among the newly discovered insects is an ant species that can protect one of Australia’s rarest butterfly species. The CSIRO said approximately 25 percent of Australia’s species are known to science. David Yeates, a CSIRO entomologist, said officially describing species was key to protecting Australia’s biodiversity.