A worldwide international collaboration is locating tropical areas with high concentrations of plants not yet identified by science, then working with local communities to conserve those plants and their habitats.
Up in Tanzania’s Ukaguru Mountains, researchers have found a new-to-science frog species with a unique trait: it doesn’t make a sound. The small, silent Ukaguru spiny-throated reed frog (Hyperolius ukaguruensis)…
Newly described bat from Mozambique mountain under threat, researchers say A forest that harbors Mozambique’s most recently identified species of mammal could disappear within the next two years as small-scale…
KATHMANDU — If you were a grumpy cat, you’d probably want to avoid company. And if you were the world’s grumpiest, as David Attenborough once described the elusive manul, what…
A resplendent rainbow fish, a frog that looks like chocolate, a Thai tarantula, an anemone that rides on a back of a hermit crab, and the world's largest waterlily are…
KATHMANDU — Throughout 2022, Mongabay reported on important biodiversity-related scientific discoveries in Nepal. The stories, some of them republished by different media outlets in Nepal and abroad, brought the country’s…
KATHMANDU– When German professor Jochen Martens and his associate W. Schawaller visited subtropical forests in Nepal in 1988, they collected samples of different insects found in eastern Nepal, including a “bizarre”…
A group of researchers have identified several new species of sunbirds, whose range spans from Africa in the west and Australia in the east, in the tropical Wakatobi Islands in…
KATHMANDU — Dashain, in Nepali Hinduism, commemorates the victory of the goddess Durga over the demon Mahishasura. It’s a multiday holiday in the Himalayan country, the biggest one of the…
On a mountaintop in Ecuador, a researcher spotted some spots. The polka-dotted frog, it turned out, was new to science and has now been named Hyloscirtus sethmacfarlanei in honor of…
In 2006 and 2010, Congolese researcher Raoul Monsembula collected catfish and other species from the rivers in Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Then he hopped…
KATHMANDU — This past July 20, Radha Krishna Rijal noticed a strange animal struggling in the drainage channel of his house in the Parshyang neighborhood of western Nepal’s Pokhara Valley.…
On the northern tip of Madagascar, scientists have described eight new-to-science species of geckos, all about the length of your thumb. For decades, scientists have studied the Lygodactylus madagascariensis species…
Nestled in a valley between two volcanoes, Donald Varela-Soto heard something unfamiliar. For six months, he searched for the source of a shrill frog call along the edge of a…
KATHMANDU — When zoologist Bivek Gautam and members of his team were on an expedition to look for the Himalayan salamander (Tylototriton himalayanus) in 2020 in the forests of eastern…
In deep waters off the coast of Japan, a hermit crab is wearing haute couture. On its shell is the new-to-science anemone species Stylobates calcifer, named after the fire demon…
A previously unknown genus of primitive giant kangaroo that once roamed the rainforests of New Guinea has been described by a team of paleontologists from Flinders University in Australia. The…
Researchers have described six species of ferns new to science from the tropical forests of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, all in the genus Danaea. “The described species are no tiny…
In the sprawling Himalayas, amidst snow-peaked mountains, is a vast swathe of evergreen forest home to majestic tigers, elusive clouded leopards, charismatic hornbills, mystical giant squirrels, enchanting butterflies and bizarre…
KATHMANDU — The “vulture restaurant” in southern Nepal received a new lone diner on July 12, leaving the people serving the food puzzled. An American black vulture (Coragyps atratus), a…
In the eastern waters off Hong Kong, a group of scientists searching for coral-eating nudibranchs stumbled upon a colorful surprise: three new species of sun corals. These orange, purple and…
When plant systematist Elliot Gardner first began collecting samples of a fruit-bearing tree in Malaysian Borneo, he thought he was looking at just one species. Western taxonomists had long considered…
KATHMANDU — The list of bird species found in Nepal has now grown to 891, after a bird never before seen in the country was spotted at a national park…
A frog that looks like chocolate, a resplendent rainbow fish, and 14 Sulawesi shrews were added to a growing list of “new to science” species over the past few months.…
Out in the azure waters and colorful corals of the Maldives, a resplendent, rainbow-hued fish has become the first to be named and described by a Maldivian researcher. New to…
What’s in a name? The curious case of a nameless grasshopper will tell you that there is more to a name than meets the eye. To declare a species as…
A photo of an odd-looking amphibian drew attention on Twitter last week, where it was described as a “smooth lil fella”, compared to a melted tootsie roll candy, and likened…
Serendipity underlies some of the greatest scientific discoveries. And it was certainly at play in 2015 when a team of biologists stopped off to relax at a popular waterfall on…
Up in the trees of a misty sky island, folded into the foliage, a tiny rainfrog bears the name of a climate giant. The new-to-science species, found on a mountain…
When researchers found a begonia plant twice as tall as a person, they knew they had something extraordinary. Of the more than 2,000 known begonia species, most are the size…