chicot60
05-26-2011, 11:37 PM
Lorianna De Giorgio
Toronto Star
What does a leech with gigantic teeth, a glow-in-the-dark mushroom and a cricket that pollinates a rare and endangered orchid have in common?
They are just three on the list of the top 10 new species from 2010 selected by Arizona State University’s International Institute for Species Exploration and compiled by an international committee of taxonomists.
Each year the institute unveils its list of new critters to raise awareness about biodiversity and taxonomy — the science of species exploration and classification.
Rounding out this year’s list is a jumping cockroach, a fruit-eating lizard, a duiker or antelope, an orb-weaving spider named after Charles R. Darwin, iron-oxide eating bacterium, a pancake batfish and an underwater gilled mushroom.
Nominations were invited through the institute’s website and generated by institute staff and committee members.
The species were officially listed last year, meaning that reports of them might have been known years or decades earlier but it was only in 2010 that they were officially discovered or described.
“Their taxonomies are very diverse … all the way from bacteria and mushrooms to (species) with vertebrae,” Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist and director of the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University told the Star.
The species come from around the world, including Madagascar, Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean and West Africa.
On the list are:
• Peru’s Tyrannobdella rex or “tyrant leech king” leech. The leech boasts a single jaw and enormous teeth despite its small size — just five cm in length.
• An iron-oxide eating bacterium. Discovered on a rusticle from the Titanic deep in the Atlantic Ocean, it was named Halomonas titanicae by a team of scientists from Halfax’s Dalhousie University and Spain’s University of Sevilla. Studies show that the bacterium sticks to steel surfaces and, with more research, the bacterium could be useful in the disposal of old ships that lie deep in the ocean.
• South Africa’s jumping cockroach. Named Saltoblattella montistabularis, the cockroach can jump as high as a grasshopper. Prior to its discovery, jumping cockroaches were only known to have existed in the late Jurassic period.
• Darwin’s Bark Spider, an orb-weaving spider from Madagascar. The webs of Caerostris darwini have been found spanning rivers and lakes, including one web that stretched 82 feet.
• The pancake batfish. This species lives in waters either partially or fully encompassed by the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The bottom-dwelling species, known scientifically as Halieutichthys intermedius, moves clumsily in the water resembling a walking bat.
• The Mycena luxaeterna or “eternal light” mushroom. The small mushrooms, collected in Brazil, were found on sticks in the Atlantic forest habitat. They have gel-coated stems that emit a yellowish-green light.
• The fruit-eating monitor lizard known as Varanus bitatawa. This lizard is found in the Philippines. It has multicoloured skin, is 6-foot-6 in length and spends most of its time in trees.
• A duiker or antelope from West Africa was first encountered at a bushmeat market. The species has an arched back is named Philantomba walteri or “Walter’s Duiker” for Walter N. Verheyen, in honour of the late scientist’s work with African mammals. Verheyen supposedly collected the first duiker specimen in Togo in the late 1960s.
• A gilled mushroom found in the waters of Oregon’s Rogue. The Psathyrella aquatica “fruits” underwater, meaning its spores are released in bubbles, Wheeler explained.
• The Glomeremus orchidophilus or pollinating cricket. This cricket is the only pollinator of the endangered orchid Angraecum cadetii in the Mascarene Archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
“There are two million species that we know about ... but there are about 10 million species waiting to be discovered,” said Wheeler, estimating the remaining species should be discovered in the next 50 years.
“Species are going extinct so actually the job (at identifying them) gets easier for the wrong reasons,” Wheeler said, adding the technology and expertise are already there to discover the new species.
http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/science/article/996900--jumping-cockroach-among-the-top-10-new-species-of-2010?bn=1
Toronto Star
What does a leech with gigantic teeth, a glow-in-the-dark mushroom and a cricket that pollinates a rare and endangered orchid have in common?
They are just three on the list of the top 10 new species from 2010 selected by Arizona State University’s International Institute for Species Exploration and compiled by an international committee of taxonomists.
Each year the institute unveils its list of new critters to raise awareness about biodiversity and taxonomy — the science of species exploration and classification.
Rounding out this year’s list is a jumping cockroach, a fruit-eating lizard, a duiker or antelope, an orb-weaving spider named after Charles R. Darwin, iron-oxide eating bacterium, a pancake batfish and an underwater gilled mushroom.
Nominations were invited through the institute’s website and generated by institute staff and committee members.
The species were officially listed last year, meaning that reports of them might have been known years or decades earlier but it was only in 2010 that they were officially discovered or described.
“Their taxonomies are very diverse … all the way from bacteria and mushrooms to (species) with vertebrae,” Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist and director of the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University told the Star.
The species come from around the world, including Madagascar, Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean and West Africa.
On the list are:
• Peru’s Tyrannobdella rex or “tyrant leech king” leech. The leech boasts a single jaw and enormous teeth despite its small size — just five cm in length.
• An iron-oxide eating bacterium. Discovered on a rusticle from the Titanic deep in the Atlantic Ocean, it was named Halomonas titanicae by a team of scientists from Halfax’s Dalhousie University and Spain’s University of Sevilla. Studies show that the bacterium sticks to steel surfaces and, with more research, the bacterium could be useful in the disposal of old ships that lie deep in the ocean.
• South Africa’s jumping cockroach. Named Saltoblattella montistabularis, the cockroach can jump as high as a grasshopper. Prior to its discovery, jumping cockroaches were only known to have existed in the late Jurassic period.
• Darwin’s Bark Spider, an orb-weaving spider from Madagascar. The webs of Caerostris darwini have been found spanning rivers and lakes, including one web that stretched 82 feet.
• The pancake batfish. This species lives in waters either partially or fully encompassed by the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The bottom-dwelling species, known scientifically as Halieutichthys intermedius, moves clumsily in the water resembling a walking bat.
• The Mycena luxaeterna or “eternal light” mushroom. The small mushrooms, collected in Brazil, were found on sticks in the Atlantic forest habitat. They have gel-coated stems that emit a yellowish-green light.
• The fruit-eating monitor lizard known as Varanus bitatawa. This lizard is found in the Philippines. It has multicoloured skin, is 6-foot-6 in length and spends most of its time in trees.
• A duiker or antelope from West Africa was first encountered at a bushmeat market. The species has an arched back is named Philantomba walteri or “Walter’s Duiker” for Walter N. Verheyen, in honour of the late scientist’s work with African mammals. Verheyen supposedly collected the first duiker specimen in Togo in the late 1960s.
• A gilled mushroom found in the waters of Oregon’s Rogue. The Psathyrella aquatica “fruits” underwater, meaning its spores are released in bubbles, Wheeler explained.
• The Glomeremus orchidophilus or pollinating cricket. This cricket is the only pollinator of the endangered orchid Angraecum cadetii in the Mascarene Archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
“There are two million species that we know about ... but there are about 10 million species waiting to be discovered,” said Wheeler, estimating the remaining species should be discovered in the next 50 years.
“Species are going extinct so actually the job (at identifying them) gets easier for the wrong reasons,” Wheeler said, adding the technology and expertise are already there to discover the new species.
http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/science/article/996900--jumping-cockroach-among-the-top-10-new-species-of-2010?bn=1