2009十大新物种2
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RELATED STORIES Top New Species of 2009: Nat Geo News's Most Viewed
2000-2010: A Decade of (Climate) Change
New Species Discovered Around the Globe
This giant woolly rat found in Papua New Guinea is just one of hundreds of
species previously unknown to science that were brought to light in 2009
普通话测试成绩(more on the rat).
Discoveries such as the "reaffirm the magic of the planet," said Brendan
Cummings, a nior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity in
Joshua Tree, California.
Among the hundreds of new species are a subterranean snail that lives in
Australia's outback, a ghostshark who males have x organs on their
heads, and a tadpole-toting frog from Ecuador.
--John Roach
—Photograph courtesy Kristofer Helgen
Shown giving its tadpole a piggyback ride, this poison dart frog, which may have medical potential, is one of a dozen possible new species encountered during a conrvation expedition to Nangaritza, an isolated mountain region of southeastern Ecuador, Conrvation International announced June 16, 2009. (See video of the potential new species.)
Scientists hope the discoveries will compel the Ecuadorian government to protect the area, which they say also provides clean water to the local people.
Poison dart frogs lay their eggs in the moist forest floor and later carry the tadpoles to water, said Robin Moore, an amphibian expert with the nonprofit organization.
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October 22, 2009--This newfound subterranean snail in the Hydrobiidae family lives in aquifers in the heart of Australia, about 100 miles (180 kilometers) northwest of Alice Springs.
The 0.5-inch-long (1.3-centimeter-long) snail is one of 850 new invertebrates--simple animals that include small crustaceans, spiders, and worms--found during a four-year survey of Australia's dry outback. (Related pictures: "Hundreds of New Species Found off Tasmania.")
Until now, most of the continent's arid regions hadn't been explored by invertebrate experts, in part b
ecau the underground springs and microcaverns--some smaller than 0.4 inch (1 centimeter) wide--were thought to be devoid of life, said team member Steve Cooper of the South Australian Muum in Adelaide.
蝴蝶卡通"We are only just beginning to discover in Australia that groundwater is not just an inert entity," Cooper said via email, "but is the host of many diver ecosystems with an extraordinary array of previously unknown species."
Cooper, who received funding for his work from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Rearch and Exploration, co-prented the rearch at the Darwin 200: Evolution and Biodiversity conference in Darwin, Australia, in September 2009. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)
--Christine Dell'Amore
—Photograph courtesy Bill Humphrey, Western Australian Muum
Weird New Ghostshark Found; Male Has Sex Organ on Head
September 22, 2009—California has a new star, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark.
电动车质量排行榜But the newly identified species prefers to stay out of the sun—and the spotlight. And with a club-like x organ on its forehead, the male ghostshark isn't likely to get any leading man roles.洋娃娃英语
Pictured alive underwater (top) and prerved in a muum collection (bottom), the new ghostshark us winglike fins to "fly" through its dark habitat, thousands of feet deep off the coasts of California and Mexico's Baja California peninsula, a new study says. (See map.)
The ghostshark ems to have flown under the scientific radar too. Since the 1960s experts have been finding specimens of the strange, 3-foot-long (0.9-meter-long) fish, which ended up nameless in muum collections around the world.
It wasn't until after a team recently arched through shelves of "dead pickled fish" that the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark was recognized as its own new species, said study co-author Douglas Long, chief curator in natural sciences at the Oakland Muum of
California. The specimens' unique proportions, precily measured, gave the fish away as a parate species of ghostshark.
Ghostsharks in Chimerical Company
The shark-like animal belongs to the mysterious and little-studied chimaeras, perhaps the oldest group of fish alive today.
悄悄地离开The "living fossils" branched off from sharks about 400 million years ago. They may have survived by adapting to extreme deep-a environments, Long said.回民小吃街
(Related: "Bloodsucking Lamprey Found to Be 'Living Fossil.'")
The newfound ghostshark belongs to the "big black chimaeras," a group who species number has exploded in recent years, thanks to improved diagnostic techniques, according to the new study, published in the September issue of the journal Zootaxa.
Chimaeras display some unusual features not en in other living animals, Long said.
Male chimaeras, for example, have retractable xual appendages sprouting from their foreheads. The organs, which remble a spiked club at the end of a stalk, may be ud to stimulate a female or to pull her clor—though the are still assumptions, Long said.
Long said the odd fish shows how complex the deep ocean can be—as well as the vast potential for encountering weird new creatures.
"It's like Christmas. You don't what you're going to get," he said, "but you know it's going to be great."
—Christine Dell'Amore
Ghostshark photographs courtesy MBARI (top) and by Kely James (bottom)
