Pliobates cataloniaINSTITUT CATALA DE PALEONTOLOGIA MIQUEL CRUSAFONT, MARTA PALMEROA new human ancestor, a ruby-red seadragon, and a damselfly with a suggestive name are among the “top 10” new species discovered last year, according to a panel of scientists. The International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF), which selects 10 species from a list of about 18,000 discovered each year, announced its latest list today (May 24).
“In the past half-century we have come to recognize that species are going extinct at an alarming rate,” Quentin Wheeler, SUNY-ESF president and founding director of the IISE, said in the statement. “It is time that we accelerate species exploration, too. Knowledge of what species exist, where they live, and what they do will help mitigate the biodiversity crisis and archive evidence of the life on our planet that does disappear in the wild.”
This year’s finalists include a new addition to the human evolutionary tree, a hominin called Homo naledi discovered in a cave in South Africa. The fossils contain the remains of at least 15 different individuals, making it the biggest collection of remains from a single hominin species discovered in Africa to ...
