SURPRISING SEA HORSE: The world's smallest known sea horse was just one of the notable species discovered last year.
Image: JOHN SEAR
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Even as species around the globe are rapidly falling prey to extinction, and countless others are threatened, scientists are still turning up new species of plants and animals every year—thousands of them. From the longest insect to the smallest snake, a fascinating diversity of organisms has remained unknown until the past year.
In 2007—the last year for which data is available—18,516 new species were described, according to this year's "State of Observed Species" report, which was released last week.
"Most people do not realize just how incomplete our knowledge of Earth's species is," Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist and director of the International Institute of Species Exploration (IISE) at Arizona State University in Tempe, said in a statement. "We are surrounded by such an exuberance of species diversity that we too often take it for granted," he continued.
Each year an international committee of taxonomists—those who name and classify new species—gather at the IISE to discuss the newly named specimens and whittle them down to a top 10. This year's includes a naturally decaffeinated coffee plant as well as bacteria that thrive in hair spray. Read on for the full and fascinating list.
The release of the list commemorates the May 23, 1707, birth of Carolus Linnaeus, who designed the modern classification and naming systems.
Slide Show: 2008's Top 10 New Species
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11 Comments
Add CommentGreat, can't wait to hear about them again in six months... ...when they're facing extinction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishello, My name is duaine and i am a freshman in college biology 101. i think this is so interesting. the discovery of such things as the decaf coffee plant and the stick bug gives me the opportunity to do a paper "science review" for a grade in the class. please let me know if there are more discoveries of this nature. i look forward to your response. Thanks
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisif they can grow coffee without cafine...can they devided the good canniaboids {weed} from the undesirable ones..munchies.cotten mouth................?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCivilization is killing things before they can even name them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIndustrialized civilization is killing everything on this planet, including you and me.
Kids, don't get too excited about the decaf coffee plant. There are over 20 species of coffee plants. Only one makes what we consider consumable coffee today. There are two other species we consume as coffee, but they typically require chemical processing to taste more acceptably like the other species.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAssuming that this decaf species belongs among those three we make coffee out of, chances are it will involve a chemical process. In which case, not much different from how coffee is decaffeinated today.
OMGosh no way dude, that is just WAY too cool!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRT
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I believe the natural cycle of life is the dying off of species so that new ones can inhabit the earth; otherwise the earth would become too habitated by all species - whether we discover them or not. One day humankind might belong in the extinct category... remember there are no dinosauers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo Hotblack and Notsure: too late! - the Materpiscis attenboroughi fish went extinct about 380 million years ago. :-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIndeed, the cycles of nature on quite on course with the constant extinction of living things, . . . and, the constant creation of new species as has been witnessed many times in the last 50 years alone. Humans have indeed been directly responsible for the extinction of many species, but so have we been responsible for saving a few others from extinction due to factors completely outside human cause.
In any case, great slide show - fascinating lifeforms! And as for the bacteria in hairspray, what a sticky way to live!
A cynic smells flowers and looks around for a coffin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is the difference between the Tahina Spectabilis and the Corypha Umbraculifera?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswow!!
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