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New species top 10 list: underworld worm, walking cactus creature,blue tarantula, sneezing monkey, by wwy yrj
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New species top 10 list: underworld worm, walking cactus creature,blue tarantula, sneezing monkey, by WWY YRJ
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| Article Posted: 12/05/2012 |
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| Articles Written: 1412 - MORE ARTICLES FROM THIS AUTHOR |
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New species top 10 list: underworld worm, walking cactus creature,blue tarantula, sneezing monkey, |
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On this year's top 10 new species list are a sneezing monkey, abeautiful but venomous jellyfish, an underworld worm and a fungusnamed for a popular TV cartoon character. The top 10 new speciesalso include a night-blooming orchid, an ancient walking cactuscreature and a tiny wasp. Rounding out this year's list are avibrant poppy, a giant millipede and a blue tarantula. "The top 10 is intended to bring attention to the biodiversitycrisis and the unsung species explorers and museums who continue a250-year tradition of discovering and describing the millions ofkinds of plants, animals and microbes with whom we share thisplanet," said Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist who directs theInternational Institute for Species Exploration at ASU.
Members of the international committee who made their selectionfrom more than 200 nominations look for "species that captureour attention because they are unusual or because they have traitsthat are bizarre," said Mary Liz Jameson, an associateprofessor at Wichita State University who chaired the internationalselection committee. "Some of the new species have interestingnames; some highlight what little we really know about ourplanet," she said. Images and other information about the top 10 new species,including the explorers who made the discoveries and recorded themin calendar year 2011, are online at species.asu.edu . Also at the site is a Google world map that pinpoints thelocation for each of the top 10 new species. This year's top 10come from Brazil, Myanmar, the Dutch Caribbean, South Africa, PapuaNew Guinea, Spain, Borneo, Nepal, China and Tanzania.
Describing the discoveries Sneezing monkey: Since 2000, the number of mammals discovered each year averagesabout 36. So it was nothing to sneeze at when a new primate came tothe attention of scientists conducting a gibbon survey in the highmountains of Myanmar (formerly Burma). Rhinopithecus strykeri , named in honor of Jon Stryker, president and founder of the ArcusFoundation, is the first snub-nosed monkey to be reported fromMyanmar and is believed to be critically endangered. It isdistinctive for its mostly black fur and white beard and forsneezing when it rains.
A video of this species in on YouTube at watch?v=d1VuRvRv_UU . Bonaire banded box jelly: This strikingly beautiful yet venomous jellyfish looks like a boxkite with colorful, long tails. The species name, Tamoya ohboya,was selected by a teacher as part of a citizen science project,assuming that people who are stung exclaim "Oh boy!" Avideo of the species, which has been spotted near the DutchCaribbean island of Bonaire, is on YouTube at watch?v=PcraphPLAxY . Devil's worm: Measuring about 0.5 millimeters (1/50 or 0.02 inches) these tinynematodes are the deepest-living terrestrial multicellularorganisms on the planet.
They were discovered at a depth of 1.3kilometers (8/10 mile) in a South African gold mine and given thename Halicephalobus mephisto in reference to the Faust legend ofthe devil because the new species is found at such a depth in theEarth's crust and has survived immense underground pressure as wellas high temperatures (37 degrees Celsius or 98.6 degreesFahrenheit). According to its discoverers, carbon dating indicatedthat the borehole water where this species lives had not been incontact with Earth's atmosphere for the last 4,000 to 6,000 years. Night-blooming orchid: A slender night stalker is one way to describe this rare orchidfrom Papua New Guinea whose flowers open around 10 at night andclose early the next morning. It was described by scientists fromthe Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Leiden University, who named it Bulbophyllum nocturnum from the Latin word meaning "at night." It is believedto be the first night-blooming orchid recorded among the more than25,000 known species of orchids. Parasitic wasp: Ants beware! This new species of parasitic wasp cruises at justone centimeter (less than half an inch) above the ground in Madrid,Spain, in search of its target: ants.
With a target in sight, theteensy wasp attacks from the air like a tiny dive bomber,depositing an egg in less than 1/20 of a second. A video of thewasp, named Kollasmosoma sentum , dropping an egg on its target is on YouTube at watch?v=bpMGhGMWaTA . SpongeBob SquarePants mushroom: Named Spongiforma squarepantsii, after the cartoon characterSpongeBob SquarePants, this new fungi species looks more like asponge than a typical mushroom. One of its characteristics is thatits fruiting body can be squeezed like a sponge and bounce back toits normal size and shape.
This fungus, which smells fruity, wasdiscovered in forests on the island of Borneo in Malaysia. Nepalese autumn poppy: This vibrant, tall, yellow poppy found in Nepal may have goneundescribed because of its high mountain habitat (10,827 to 13,780feet). Named Meconopsis autumnalis for the autumn season when the plant flowers, there is evidencethat this species was collected before but not recognized as newuntil intrepid botanists collecting plants miles from humanhabitation in heavy monsoon rains made the "rediscovery." Giant millipede: A giant millipede about the length of a sausage bears the commonname "wandering leg sausage," which also is at the rootof its Latin name: Crurifarcimen vagans . The species holds a new record as the largest millipede (16centimeters or about 6.3 inches) found in one of the world'sbiodiversity hotspots, Tanzania's Eastern Arc Mountains.
The newspecies is about 1.5 centimeter (0.6 inch) in diameter with 56 moreor less podous rings, or body segments bearing ambulatory limbs,each with two pairs of legs. Walking cactus (lobopod fossil): Although this new species looks more like a "walkingcactus" than an animal at first glance, Diania cactiformis belongs to an extinct group called the armoured Lobopodia, whichhad wormlike bodies and multiple pairs of legs. The fossil wasdiscovered in Cambrian deposits about 520 million years old fromsouthwestern China and is remarkable in its segmented legs that mayindicate a common ancestry with arthropods, including insects andspiders. Sazima's tarantula: Breathtakingly beautiful, this iridescent hairy blue tarantula isthe first new animal species from Brazil to be named on the top 10list. Pterinopelma sazimai is not the first or only blue tarantula but truly spectacular andfrom "island" ecosystems on flattop mountains.
Why a top 10 new species list? "The more species we discover, the more amazing the biosphereproves to be, and the better prepared we are to face whateverenvironmental challenges lie ahead," said the institute'sWheeler, who also is a professor in ASU's School of Sustainabilityand its School of Life Sciences. "It is impossible to do justice to the species discoveriesmade each year by singling out just 10. Imagine being handed 18,000newly published books packed with fantastic information and storiesand before having the opportunity to read them, being asked to pickthe best 10," Wheeler said. "With the help of aninternational committee of experts we do the best we can by pickingthose with flashy jackets, surprising titles and unexpected plotlines in an effort to draw attention to the whole lot.
"There are many reasons to discover and describe species, anddraw attention to this work. Perhaps most obvious is environmental:Unless we know what species exist to begin with, we are powerlessto detect, track or mitigate losses of biodiversity," saidWheeler. "Another is biomimetics, turning to species for cluesabout new and sustainable ways to meet our needs for survival,materials and designs. There is also an intergenerational ethicalimperative for species exploration. Because human population levelsand activities are driving extinctions, we owe to humans who followto explore and document our flora and fauna.
"Each species provides a unique chapter in the history of lifeand unless we discover them now, we stand to lose an enormousamount of irreplaceable evidence about our own origins andrelatives," said Wheeler, who is one of an international groupof 39 scientists, scholars and engineers who provided a detailedplan in the March 30 issue of the journal Systematics andBiodiversity to chart 10 million species in less than 50 years, andcalled it a necessary step to sustain the planet's biodiversity. Marking the May 23 birth of Linnaeus The annual top 10 new species announcement commemorates theanniversary of the birth of Carolus Linnaeus, who initiated themodern system of plant and animal names and classifications. The300th anniversary of his birth on May 23 was celebrated worldwidein 2007. Since Linnaeus initiated the modern systems for naming plants andanimals in the 18th century, nearly 2 million species have beennamed, described and classified.
Scientists estimate there arebetween 8 million and 100 million species on Earth, though most setthe number between 8 million to 12 million. The list of the top 10 new species is issued annually by ASU'sInternational Institute for Species Exploration as part of itspublic awareness campaign to shine attention on biodiversity andthe field of taxonomy. Previous top 10 lists are online at species.asu.edu . Taxon experts pick top 10 "The top 10 new species is all about exploration anddiscovery," said committee chair Jameson, "and learningmore about our planet.
Lewis and Clark's discoveries included thepronghorn antelope, prairie dog and prairie rose -- 250 speciesaltogether. But our job is far from over. We need the help ofcitizens and scientists alike to meet this grand challenge." Nominations for this year's top 10 list were invited through the species.asu.edu website and also generated by institute staff and committeemembers. "We had well over 200 new species nominated this year, andfrom those, we picked some fascinating "critters," saidJameson. "Members on the committee come from many places around theworld and from many backgrounds, so we bring our own biases to theprocess; some of us like photosynthesizers, some like predators,some like ocean dwelling critters," she said.
"Committee members had complete freedom in making theirchoices and developing their own criteria, from unique attributesor surprising facts about the species to peculiar names,"Wheeler noted. "I deeply appreciate the taxon experts who gavetheir knowledge and time to select this year's top 10. By sharingtheir passion for exploring the biosphere and discovering species,they spread the recognition and appreciation of the critical rolesplayed by taxonomy, botanical gardens and natural history museumsin biodiversity exploration and conservation." In addition to Jameson, a scarab expert, other members on thisyear's committee included Philippe Bouchet, a marine life expert atthe French National Museum of Natural History; Meg Daly, an expertin sea anemones at the Department of Evolution, Ecology andOrganismal Biology, Ohio State University; Peter Kämpfer, whoexpertise is bacteria, Institut für Angewandte Mikrobiologie,Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen; Niels Peder Kristensen, anexpert in Lepidoptera and basal hexapods at the Natural HistoryMuseum of Denmark, Zoologisk Museum, University of Copenhagen;James Macklin, an expert on hawthorns and blackberries at theAgriculture and Agri-food Canada; Ellinor Michel, a mollusk expertat the Department of Zoology, Natural History Museum, London; JohnNoyes, a chalcidoid wasp expert at the Department of Entomology,Natural History Museum, London; Alan Paton, who is an expert onmints at the International Plant Names Index and Royal BotanicGardens, Kew, UK; Andrew Polaszek, an expert on Hymenoptera(parasitoid wasps) at the Department of Entomology, Natural HistoryMuseum, London; Gideon F. Smith, an expert on succulent plants atthe Biosystematics Research and Biodiversity Collections, SouthAfrican National Biodiversity Institute; Antonio Valdecasas, awater mite expert at the Museo Nacional Ciencias Naturales, Madrid,Spain; and Zhi-Qiang Zhang, a mite expert at the New ZealandArthropod Collection, Landcare Research. I am Timepieces, Jewelry, Eyewear writer, reports some information about wholesale shell necklaces , glass drop beads.
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