Over 1000 new species of animals descovered!

[Robert.B]

"Conservation group WWF says that more than 1,000 species new to science have been recorded in South-East Asia's Greater Mekong region over the past decade." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7780514.stm

This makes me so excited and sad at the same time. Excited for the obvious reasons but sad becasue we need to really save this beautiful and dying treasure we inhabit, and I need to get down to south america and south Asia with a camera before I miss all of this natural wonder!

[Duq]

More images, and high res even. Includes a tiger bunny thing!

http://www.divshare.com/download/5951933-edc

http://www.divshare.com/img/display/5951935-d04
http://www.divshare.com/img/display/5952023-41d
http://www.divshare.com/img/display/5952026-be2

[Robert.B]

Im trying to track down the Heteropoda dagmarae which apperently is a new species of giant huntsman that reaches 33cm in length! I love huntsman spiders ^_^

[Jason Rainville]

If they're endangered because of humanity's influence, then sure let's give them a helping hand. Otherwise, we have no responsibility to freeze frame nature in the arbitrary position we found it in.

[J Wilson]

I highly doubt we'll ever stop discovering new species. With apologies to creationists (or "Intelligent Design" if they prefer), I think new species are actually developing regularly, or are at least being recognized as new species regularly. What makes something a species of it's own isn't black and white, even among scientists. There have been times when scientists have discovered new species almost literally in their back yards (I think I remember hearing some what recently about a new species of bug being discovered in a national arboretum).

[Duq]

Im trying to track down the Heteropoda dagmarae which apperently is a new species of giant huntsman that reaches 33cm in length! I love huntsman spiders ^_^

Here it is :)

[Robert.B]

yeah iv seen that pic there is apperently another new species of Hunstman known as the Tiger hunstmans thats been recently descoverd early this year through out asia all the way to australia and its size varies. Im still not convinced thats the same breed seeing as how the Heteropoda dagmarae is more greyish with longer front legs.

[Matsign]

i support the WWF for this and many reasons

[FourTonMantis]

With apologies to creationists (or "Intelligent Design" if they prefer), I think new species are actually developing regularly, or are at least being recognized as new species regularly.

The development of new species and adaptation over time doesn't really contradict intelligent design or even creationism. Species obviously change according to environment over time.

[donkeyslayer]

http://www.divshare.com/img/display/5952026-be2

http://www.getlofi.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/circuitbent_famicom.JPG

that's a Famicom colored frog :)

[J Wilson]

The development of new species and adaptation over time doesn't really contradict intelligent design or even creationism. Species obviously change according to environment over time.

I agree (as much as I CAN agree with any element of I.D.) that one doesn't rule out the other, however, a lot of the creationist/I.D. supporters don't want to ackowledge any part of evolution as being possible for fear of losing the whole argument. It makes perfect sense to me that of course species change over time. You have must to survive.

[Me,Myself & Me again]

Awesome thanx for the info guys!
Lots of inspiration where different species are found :D

[HunterKiller_]

Oh man, Tiger Bunny wins!

[VulgarDragon]

I agree (as much as I CAN agree with any element of I.D.) that one doesn't rule out the other, however, a lot of the creationist/I.D. supporters don't want to ackowledge any part of evolution as being possible for fear of losing the whole argument. It makes perfect sense to me that of course species change over time. You have must to survive.

Actually, evolution (as in diversification of a species through natural selection) is acceptable to many creationists.

I saw this article today and it was really exciting for me to read. Imagine this, 1,000 previously undiscovered species in such a small area. It's not hard to imagine how many species were actually present before humankind spread across the globe and learned to categorize wildlife....like Hawaii and Australia. They used to have thousands of different species but all were lost soon after humans settled those areas.


I was reading about a pink millipede that they found that produces cyanide...is there a picture of it?

[PuppyKitten]

If they're endangered because of humanity's influence, then sure let's give them a helping hand. Otherwise, we have no responsibility to freeze frame nature in the arbitrary position we found it in.


This will sound crazy coming from me, a known animal rights activist, but I kind of agree there. Cool species' come and go as their ability to fill a niche ebbs and wanes.

I think it's more important to lessen suffering of individual animals for humane reasons, as opposed to saving a whole species for selfish reasons ("It's a travesty that my granchildren might have to live in a world without majestic tigers!" etc...)

But for species that we are hurting or who still have a valid habitat and niche to fill, then I'm all for helping them out.

And anyway some of those creatures are just effing cute!!!

[Oden]

If they're endangered because of humanity's influence, then sure let's give them a helping hand. Otherwise, we have no responsibility to freeze frame nature in the arbitrary position we found it in.

We certainly don't, and we certainly aren't freezing nature in the arbitrary position we found it in. We've been changing the environment for a while--tens of thousands of years (ie. the megafauna extinctions of prehistory).

Now we're starting to move onto the less charismatic flora and fauna (once we've knocked off those pesky tiggers n' stuff).

"The current global extinction rate, which is 100 to 1000 times greater than prehuman levels (3, 4), and the loss of local diversity due to management practices have the potential to affect ecosystem processes strongly on both local and global scales."

-F. Stuart Chapin III, Brian H. Walker, Richard J. Hobbs, David U. Hooper, John H. Lawton, Osvaldo E. Sala, David Tilman. Biotic Control over the Functioning of Ecosystems. Science. 277(5325): 500-504.

I honestly think it's safe to assume for our practices that most if not all of the species that are currently endangered are endangered because of our actions, and deserve our protection.

[Serpian]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=541300&stc=1&d=1229361392 http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=508635&stc=1&d=1225692713

Hmmmm....

EDIT: what? why doesn't the img tags work?

[Jason Rainville]

We certainly don't, and we certainly aren't freezing nature in the arbitrary position we found it in. We've been changing the environment for a while--tens of thousands of years (ie. the megafauna extinctions of prehistory).

Now we're starting to move onto the less charismatic flora and fauna (once we've knocked off those pesky tiggers n' stuff).

"The current global extinction rate, which is 100 to 1000 times greater than prehuman levels (3, 4), and the loss of local diversity due to management practices have the potential to affect ecosystem processes strongly on both local and global scales."

-F. Stuart Chapin III, Brian H. Walker, Richard J. Hobbs, David U. Hooper, John H. Lawton, Osvaldo E. Sala, David Tilman. Biotic Control over the Functioning of Ecosystems. Science. 25 (277): 500-504.

I honestly think it's safe to assume for our practices that most if not all of the species that are currently endangered are endangered because of our actions, and deserve our protection.

Like I said, if we can easily see we're causing these species to be endangered (I would particularly hate to see birds of paradise extinct because of deforestation) then yeah, we should probably help. I of course have no real idea about the influence we have and so don't know where, when, how species are affected by man.

[Black Spot]

In the 60s when I was living in Malaysia which was supposed to have the biggest diversity of snakes (where they had only ever found one example of some species) the story was that if bitten and didn’t know the name of the snake, you had to chase after it and take it to the hospital with you. Needless to say my younger brother and I were very interested in this, but disappointed that we didn’t actually see that many snakes. We were very noisy kids.

[chriskot]

These are some great pictures. I love that centipede.

"The current global extinction rate, which is 100 to 1000 times greater than prehuman levels (3, 4), and the loss of local diversity due to management practices have the potential to affect ecosystem processes strongly on both local and global scales."

-F. Stuart Chapin III, Brian H. Walker, Richard J. Hobbs, David U. Hooper, John H. Lawton, Osvaldo E. Sala, David Tilman. Biotic Control over the Functioning of Ecosystems. Science. 25 (277): 500-504.

I honestly think it's safe to assume for our practices that most if not all of the species that are currently endangered are endangered because of our actions, and deserve our protection.

It doesn't surprise me and I don't doubt it, but I've always wondered how they came up with that "100 to 1000" figure. How do we know the extinction rate before human times? Sure we've found fossils and everything, but it's rare that an animal does end up up fossilized or preserved after its death, so there are definitely a lot more extinct species then we know about (just like there are a lot more still living, as this article makes clear). And on top of that, many species of animal are similar enough that their remains might be grouped together. Anybody know where they get that estimate from?

[Oden]

These are some great pictures. I love that centipede.

It doesn't surprise me and I don't doubt it, but I've always wondered how they came up with that "100 to 1000" figure. How do we know the extinction rate before human times? Sure we've found fossils and everything, but it's rare that an animal does end up up fossilized or preserved after its death, so there are definitely a lot more extinct species then we know about (just like there are a lot more still living, as this article makes clear). And on top of that, many species of animal are similar enough that their remains might be grouped together. Anybody know where they get that estimate from?

Hey dude, I'm not completely sure. fair question...so I looked at the journal article again (peer-reviewed, by the by :P ) and it looks like they cited these two for that estimate:

S. L. Pimm, G. J. Russell, J. L. Gittleman, T. M. Brooks, Science 269, 347 (1995) .

J. H. Lawton and R. M. May, Eds., Extinction Rates (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1995).

the second one is a book, the first one is another journal article. I managed to find the journal article in the Science archives, but I'm going through my university portal, so you might not be able to access it otherwise.
If you have some sort of access, check it out! It's actually a pretty interesting article.

Basically (very basically, cause I don't really know anything about it), for the background extinction they used the results of 11 studies on marine invertebrates to determine the approximate life-span of a fossil species (10^6 to 10^7 yrs) (MSY), and then calculated the number of extinctions (E) per 10^6 fossil years (E/MSY). Like you said, the fossil record is patchy, but the marine invertebrate fossil record is pretty detailed. As for present rates, they also used known (still estimated) speciation rates to compare with the background extinction rates, molecular phylogenies (family-trees), and some computer models. It's definitely an estimate, but sounds like a pretty exacting one, given the circumstances.


only for interest, the article also lists examples of a crapload of extinctions that have happened in recent prehistory and history due to human presence..