A glow-in-the-dark cockroach, an insect described from a photo posted on Flickr, a monkey that has been likened to Jesus, a carnivorous sea sponge, and the world’s tiniest frog are among the “top 10” species discovered during 2012, according to global committee of taxonomists.
The list, now in its sixth year, is based on a voting process organized by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. The announcement coincides with the anniversary of the birth of Carolus Linnaeus, the 18th century Swedish botanist who established the modern system of classifying organisms.
The species selected by the panel tend to be ones that are charismatic and scored significant media attention, but the exercise aims to highlight how little we yet know about the species that share our planet.
“We have identified only about two million of an estimated 10 to 12 million living species and that does not count most of the microbial world,” said Quentin Wheeler, founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration at ASU. “For decades, we have averaged 18,000 species discoveries per year which seemed reasonable before the biodiversity crisis. Now, knowing that millions of species may not survive the 21st century, it is time to pick up the pace.”
Wheeler is pushing for a substantial increase in investment in identifying and classifying the world species.
“We are calling for a NASA-like mission to discover 10 million species in the next 50 years,” Wheeler said. “This would lead to discovering countless options for a more sustainable future while securing evidence of the origins of the biosphere.”
The descriptions below are courtesy of ASU’s International Institute for Species Exploration.
Lilliputian Violet Viola lilliputana Country: Peru Tiny violet: Not only is the Lilliputian violet among the smallest violets in the world, it is also one of the most diminutive terrestrial dicots. Known only from a single locality in an Intermontane Plateau of the high Andes of Peru, Viola lilliputana lives in the dry puna grassland eco-region. Specimens were first collected in the 1960s, but the species was not described as a new until 2012. The entire above ground portion of the plant is barely 1 centimeter tall. Named, obviously, for the race of little people on the island of Lilliput in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Lyre Sponge Chondrocladia lyra Country: NE Pacific Ocean; USA: California Carnivorous sponge: A spectacular, large, harp- or lyre-shaped carnivorous sponge discovered in deep water (averaging 3,399 meters) from the northeast Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. The harp-shaped structures or vanes number from two to six and each has more than 20 parallel vertical branches, often capped by an expanded, balloon-like, terminal ball. This unusual form maximizes the surface area of the sponge for contact and capture of planktonic prey.
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