Vampire hedgehog, pygmy horse, “drop-headed” fish among the new species identified in 2024

A vampire hedgehog, a pygmy horse and a “drop-head” fish were among the hundreds of new species identified in 2024.

The variety of species identified was quite eclectic and the names for the new species crossed a wide spectrum of places and formations – some even inspired by politicians or celebrities.

A new species of plant bug has been named after Vice President Kamala Harris (P. kamalaharrisae) and another after Harrison Ford (P. harrisonfordi) for their efforts in climate science and conservation, said California Academy of Sciences researcher Brad Balukjian, who introduced 17 new species in the Pseudoloxops family from French Polynesia.

Actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio has had a new species of snake named after him. The researchers he discovered the small copper colored snake in the Himalayas and called the species Anguiculus dicaprioi.

Places where scientists have discovered these species include Peru, the Ecuadorian Amazon, and the Greater Mekong region in South Asia. The California Academy of Sciences they say their scientists have made discoveries across six continents and three oceans, which led to describing 138 new species of animals, plants and fungi.

“Finding and describing new species is vital to understanding our planet’s biodiversity and protecting it from further loss,” said virologist Shannon Bennett, chief science officer for the California Academy of Sciences.

The number of new species identified in 2024 cannot be counted or determined from a list. Researchers present their results in various papers, conferences and among the scientific community. The inclusion is made tricker because discoveries can be made by anyone, anywhere, but describing and identifying a new species it requires a scientific process.

That process involves the study and analysis of the new specimen and similar organisms, and then assigning the species a new name. A species may be discovered but not necessarily described until years later.

Bennett told CBS News that when scientists describe a new species, they compare it to “a ball that comes out.” For the first time, Bennett said, the species is correctly identified and finally has its place in the world.

Regardless, Bennett said “scientists estimate that we have identified only one-tenth of all species on Earth.”

Here are some of the highlights of 2024.

Vampire hedgehog, a soft-furred hedgehog with “fang-like teeth”

According to a report from WWF234 species have been identified this year in the Greater Mekong region, which includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Among them was Hylomys macaronga vampire hedgehog. The soft-furred hedgehog with fang-like teeth inspired its scientific name. The word Ma cà rồng is Vietnamese for “vampire”.

First photographed in 2009 in the wild in Vietnam by a team from the Russian Vietnamese Research Center, the vampire hedgehog was identified as a new species as part of an international effort to revise the taxonomy of lesser gymnures, the WWF he said.

The specimens that helped lead to the description of the vampire hedgehog were housed in the Smithsonian, researcher Arlo Hinckley told WWF. He stressed the importance of keeping specimens collected from “undersampled regions” so that “the next generation” of researchers would make new discoveries that might have been overlooked.

Pygmy pipehorse, found off the coast of South Africa

Researchers from the California Academy of Scientists knew they might discover something new after local divers in South Africa’s Sodwana Bay told them about an unknown species. But scientists worried they wouldn’t be able to see the tiny pygmy horse – about the size of a golf tee.

“South African reefs present notoriously difficult diving conditions with harsh weather and intense, rough waves – we knew we only had one dive to find it,” said scientist and study co-author Richard Smith. in a press release earlier this month.

But Smith and Graham Short – the scientist who originally described the pygmy pipe genus Cylix in 2021 – they were not encouraged, according to the academy. Originally, the pygmy fish was found in the cool temperate waters surrounding the North Island of New Zealand. The discovery of a new species in subtropical waters has expanded the range of the group.

“Fortunately we spotted a female camouflaged against some sponges about a mile offshore on the sandy ocean floor,” Smith said in the news release.

They named the new species pygmy pipehorse C. the kingafter the local Zulu word for “chief”, the academy said.

“Blob-headed” fish baffles researchers

Among eight new species of fish identified in Peru’s Alto Mayor region this year, the most shocking was the “head fish.” according to a report published this month from the non-profit group Conservation International.

In the summer of 2022, researchers with the group’s Rapid Assessment Program conducted a biological survey in a largely unstudied area in the central region of Alto May and found what was later determined to be at least 27 species new to science and 49 species that are threatened with extinction. , Peru IUCN Red List.

Among those who were again was a “piece-headed fish” in the Chaetostoma genus, which includes armored catfish. The team’s fish scientists have never seen a fish with an enlarged head like a bush, Conservation International said.

“The function of this unusual structure remains a mystery,” the researchers said in a statement.

However, the species was already familiar to the indigenous Awajun people working with the Rapid Assessment Program, the researchers said.