A global committee of taxonomists announced its list of top 10 species
from 2012 today. Each year, the
International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) at Arizona State University international committee of taxon experts evaluates
the hundreds of new species that have been nominated by the public,
IISE staff, scientists, scientific journal editors and by the committee
members themselves.
And here we go - the top 10 with short descriptions by the IISE:
Lilliputian Violet
Viola lilliputana
Country: Peru
Tiny violet:
Not only is the Lilliputian violet among the smallest violets in the
world, it is also one of the most diminutive terrestrial dicots. Known
only from a single locality in an Intermontane Plateau of the high Andes
of Peru, Viola lilliputana lives in the dry puna grassland eco-region.
Specimens were first collected in the 1960s, but the species was not
described as a new until 2012. The entire above ground portion of the
plant is barely 1 centimeter tall. Named, obviously, for the race of
little people on the island of Lilliput in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s
Travels.
Lyre Sponge
Chondrocladia lyra
Country: NE Pacific Ocean; USA: California
Carnivorous sponge:
A spectacular, large, harp- or lyre-shaped carnivorous sponge
discovered in deep water (averaging 3,399 meters) from the northeast
Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. The harp-shaped structures or
vanes number from two to six and each has more than 20 parallel
vertical branches, often capped by an expanded, balloon-like, terminal
ball. This unusual form maximizes the surface area of the sponge for
contact and capture of planktonic prey.
Lesula Monkey
Cercopithecus lomamiensis
Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Old World monkey:
Discovered in the Lomami Basin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
the lesula is an Old World monkey well known to locals but newly known
to science. This is only the second species of monkey discovered in
Africa in the past 28 years. Scientists first saw the monkey as a
captive juvenile in 2007. Researchers describe the shy lesula as having
human-like eyes. More easily heard than seen, the monkeys perform a
booming dawn chorus. Adult males have a large, bare patch of skin on the
buttocks, testicles and perineum that is colored a brilliant blue.
Although the forests where the monkeys live are remote, the species is
hunted for bush meat and its status is vulnerable.
No to the Mine! Snake
Sibon noalamina
Country: Panama
Snail-eating snake:
A beautiful new species of snail-eating snake has been discovered in
the highland rainforests of western Panama. The snake is nocturnal and
hunts soft-bodied prey including earthworms and amphibian eggs, in
addition to snails and slugs. This harmless snake defends itself by
mimicking the alternating dark and light rings of venomous coral snakes.
The species is found in the Serranía de Tabasará mountain range where
ore mining is degrading and diminishing its habitat. The species name is
derived from the Spanish phrase “No a la mina” or “No to the mine.”
A Smudge on Paleolithic Art
Ochroconis anomala
Country: France
Fungus:
In 2001, black stains began to appear on the walls of Lascaux Cave in
France. By 2007, the stains were so prevalent they became a major
concern for the conservation of precious rock art at the site that dates
back to the Upper Paleolithic. An outbreak of a white fungus, Fusarium
solani, had been successfully treated when just a few months later,
black staining fungi appeared. The genus primarily includes fungi that
occur in the soil and are associated with the decomposition of plant
matter. As far as scientists know, this fungus, one of two new species
of the genus from Lascaux, is harmless. However, at least one species of
the group, O. gallopava, causes disease in humans who have compromised
immune systems.
World’s Smallest Vertebrate
Paedophryne amanuensis
Country: New Guinea
Tiny frog:
Living vertebrates — animals that have a backbone or spinal column —
range in size from this tiny new species of frog, as small as 7
millimeters, to the blue whale, measuring 25.8 meters. The new frog was
discovered near Amau village in Papua, New Guinea. It captures the title
of ‘smallest living vertebrate’ from a tiny Southeast Asian cyprinid
fish that claimed the record in 2006. The adult frog size, determined by
averaging the lengths of both males and females, is only 7.7
millimeters. With few exceptions, this and other ultra-small frogs are
associated with moist leaf litter in tropical wet forests — suggesting a
unique ecological guild that could not exist under drier circumstances.
Endangered Forest
Eugenia petrikensis
Country: Madagascar
Endangered shrub:
Eugenia is a large, worldwide genus of woody evergreen trees and shrubs
of the myrtle family that is particularly diverse in South America, New
Caledonia and Madagascar. The new species E. petrikensis is a shrub
growing to two meters with emerald green, slightly glossy foliage and
beautiful, dense clusters of small magenta flowers. It is one of seven
new species described from the littoral forest of eastern Madagascar and
is considered to be an endangered species. It is the latest evidence of
the unique and numerous species found in this specialized, humid forest
that grows on sandy substrate within kilometers of the shoreline. Once
forming a continuous band 1,600 kilometers long, the littoral forest has
been reduced to isolated, vestigial fragments under pressure from human
populations.
Lightning Roaches?
Lucihormetica luckae
Country: Ecuador
Glow-in-the-dark cockroach:
Luminescence among terrestrial animals is rather rare and best known
among several groups of beetles — fireflies and certain click beetles in
particular — as well as cave-inhabiting fungus gnats. Since the first
discovery of a luminescent cockroach in 1999, more than a dozen species
have (pardon the pun) “come to light.” All are rare, and interestingly,
so far found only in remote areas far from light pollution. The latest
addition to this growing list is L. luckae that may be endangered or
possibly already extinct. This cockroach is known from a single specimen
collected 70 years ago from an area heavily impacted by the eruption of
the Tungurahua volcano. The species may be most remarkable because the
size and placement of its lamps suggest that it is using light to mimic
toxic luminescent click beetles.
No Social Butterfly
Semachrysa jade
Country: Malaysia
Social media lacewing:
In a trend-setting collision of science and social media, Hock Ping
Guek photographed a beautiful green lacewing with dark markings at the
base of its wings in a park near Kuala Lumpur and shared his photo on
Flickr. Shaun Winterton, an entomologist with the California Department
of Food and Agriculture, serendipitously saw the image and recognized
the insect as unusual. When Guek was able to collect a specimen, it was
sent to Stephen Brooks at London’s Natural History Museum who confirmed
its new species status. The three joined forces and prepared a
description using Google Docs. In this triumph for citizen science,
talents from around the globe collaborated by using new media in making
the discovery. The lacewing is not named for its color — rather for
Winterton’s daughter, Jade.
Hanging Around in the Jurassic
Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia
Country: China
Hangingfly fossil:
Living species of hangingflies can be found, as the name suggests,
hanging beneath foliage where they capture other insects as food. They
are a lineage of scorpionflies characterized by their skinny bodies, two
pairs of narrow wings, and long threadlike legs. A new fossil species,
Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia, has been found along with preserved
leaves of a gingko-like tree, Yimaia capituliformis, in Middle Jurassic
deposits in the Jiulongshan Formation in China’s Inner Mongolia. The two
look so similar that they are easily confused in the field and
represent a rare example of an insect mimicking a gymnosperm 165 million
years ago, before an explosive radiation of flowering plants.
