Nearly 1,000 new species were discovered in 2023 by scientists at the Natural History Museum in London and the California Academy of Sciences, proving that Earth is still home to many unexplored wonders.
The discoveries were made in the year that marks the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Endangered Species Act, which provides protections for endangered plants and animals and has helped save hundreds of species, according to Scott Sampson, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences.
“However, an additional million species remain endangered due to human activities such as habitat destruction, climate change and pollution,” Sampson said in a statement.
“We must document Earth’s living diversity so we can work to protect it, and the California Academy of Sciences is honored to participate in this critical global effort.”
The diverse list of 968 new species includes previously unknown extinct creatures, beetles, moths, sea slugs, geckos, fish, frogs, spiders, plants, fungi, worms and a legless lizard.
Isn't it a snake?
Legless lizards, known as scincids, resemble snakes, hiding among leaves on the forest floor to hunt insects and other small prey. But they are different, as scincids have external ear openings and movable eyelids, according to the Virginia Zoo.
And a new species of this legless lizard was found gliding down the slopes of Serra da Neve, the second highest mountain in Angola.
Although most lizards are uniformly colored, the newly described Acontias mukwando has a pink ring around her neck.
Serra da Neve provides a unique ecosystem for the plants and animals that live on the isolated peak. The mountain is in the far north of the Namib Desert and has a cool, humid environment.
“Every new species we describe from this mountain — and others like it — is evidence that places like these deserve some kind of conservation consideration,” Aaron Bauer, a research associate at the Academy of Sciences, said in a statement.
“We are still finding new species on these isolated 'islands', which tells us it is not too late for protection.”
Pest controlling wasps
Scientists will likely remember 2023 as the year of the wasp. Of the 815 new species described by researchers at the British Natural History Museum this year, 619 of them were different types of pollinating, predatory and parasitic wasps.
The extraordinary number of discoveries was driven by the work of Dr. John Noyes and Christer Hansson, associate scientists at the Natural History Museum, who are conducting ongoing research to discover bees, ants and wasps in Costa Rica.
“It is important to continue to describe new species because many will have a profound influence on their environment, and without knowing what to call them, we cannot convey any information about them,” said Noyes.
Some of the new wasp species come in a variety of metallic hues, including blue, purple and orange.
As a fan of “Doctor Who” and a tribute to the British television series that turns 60 in 2023, Noyes named a genus of wasp after the show's species of fictional mutants called Daleks and their creator.
And while wasps may seem like a nuisance armed with stingers, the insects help control pest populations that can affect agricultural crops.
“Over the last 60 years or so, three species have been extremely important. One to prevent the possible starvation of up to 300 million people in Africa, a second to prevent the destruction of the rainforest in Thailand and another to prevent the collapse of Togo's economy,” said Noyes.
Intriguing plants
Scientists from the National Polytechnic Institute of Durango, Mexico, worked with researchers from the Academy of Sciences to study a rare succulent in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range.
The plant, which grows on cliff sides, has long been known to the local indigenous O'dam community. The O'dam people refer to the plant with bald leaves and stems as da'npakal, which means bald, bare, or slippery in their language.
The researchers named the succulent Pachyphytum odam to maintain the connection between the plant and the community that lives on the land where it grows.
Meanwhile, scientists have solved a case of mistaken identity of a flowering plant in Costa Rica. For more than 150 years, the plant was thought to belong to a similar but separate species in Mexico.
The recently identified plant, Stenostephanus purpureusis different from a plant called Stenostephanus silvaticus found in Mexico.
The flowers are different colors, and the Costa Rican plant lacks a flat petal, often called a landing platform for butterflies and other insects, which collect pollen. Instead, hummingbirds likely pollinated Stenostephanus p..
“I never questioned the identification of the Costa Rican specimens, not until I did a side-by-side comparison with images of live plants from Mexico,” Academy of Sciences researcher Ricardo Kriebel said in a statement.
“The differences between the two are subtle when you work with dead, dried specimens from collections.”
A new look at the past
Researchers at the Natural History Museum have identified four new species of extinct birds through the study of fossils, including those that lived during the time of the dinosaurs.
One of the most intriguing discoveries of the year was Kumimanu fordycei, the largest penguin that ever existed on Earth. The flightless birds lived 60 million years ago and weighed about 150 kilograms.
A previously unknown type of armored dinosaur species has also been found on the Isle of Wight. Known as Dinosaur Island, the Isle of Wight is considered one of the best places to find dinosaur fossils in the UK.
The ankylosaur, which lived on the island 140 million years ago, was named Vectipelta barretti named after Natural History Museum professor Paul Barrett.
“Paul is incredibly influential in our discipline,” Dr. Susannah Maidment, a museum paleontologist who studied the new species, said in a statement.
“He is incredibly well-known and has contributed so much to the field. But he also had a huge influence on all of our careers and we would like to thank him for that. So we decided to name a small, slow, spiky organism after him.”
Researchers also named an ancient fungus after children's book author and illustrator Beatrix Potter.
O Potteromyces asteroxylicola, 400 million years old, found infecting the roots of fossilized plants, is the first known disease-causing fungus. In addition to writing the Peter Rabbit books, Potter was an avid mycologist who studied and created detailed representations of fungi.
See also: Brazil has more than 1,200 species threatened with extinction
Source: CNN Brasil
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