New Species News

Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…

JAKARTA — The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has called for a halt to all projects that threaten the world’s rarest great ape species, the Tapanuli orangutan. “IUCN…

A new species of short-tailed whip scorpion has been discovered in the eastern Amazon. The discovery was made by two arachnologists, Gustavo Ruiz and Roberta Valente of the Universidade Federal…

Over the past decade, archaeologists have dug out several pieces of bones and teeth from a cave on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. These fossil remains, all estimated…

Researchers have finally described a new species of skink from Angola, specimens of which have lurked on museum shelves for more than 70 years. Belgian herpetologist Raymond Laurent first suspected that…

The world of miniature frogs has five new members, all from the island nation of Madagascar and each smaller than your thumbnail. Referring to their miniaturized forms, herpetologists have named…

LAMANDAU, Indonesia — At the headwaters of the Belantikan River on the island of Borneo, an organization committed to protecting orangutans is extending its efforts to a slightly less charismatic…

UPDATE (19 March 2019): The European Parliament voted March 12 to consent to the VPA with Vietnam by a vote of 632-14 with 23 abstentions. The resolution, including the explanatory…

There’s another world beneath the soil of Central Texas, one that is dark, wet, and mysterious. It’s an isolated kingdom ruled by a unique group of underground salamanders. Now, new…

JAKARTA —  An Indonesian scientist says his signature was forged to obtain a key permit underlying a $1.6 billion hydropower project in an orangutan habitat on the island of Sumatra.…

While scientists worked to confirm Tapanuli orangutans were a distinct species, pressure was mounting on the apes' habitat.

Geneticists, morphologists and behavioral scientists reveal the inside story of how their research led to the description of the Tapanuli orangutan.

Wearing nothing more than leaves hanging from belts of woven vegetation, the three scientists stand in the rain with little idea of what to expect. They’ve lived and worked with…

From the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in South America, researchers have described six new species of catfish that have tentacles on their faces, spines sticking out from their heads, and…

A leaf-tailed gecko can be incredibly tricky to find. These lizards in the genus Uroplatus, found only in the forests of Madagascar, can masterfully camouflage themselves among dried leaves, sometimes…

A team of biologists surveying remote parts of the Cordillera del Cóndor (Condor mountain range) in Ecuador’s eastern Andes have described a species of tree frog that’s new to science.…

Once again this year, researchers described several new species of animals and plants after months, or even several years, of trials and tribulations. Some were tiny, like the Japan pig,…

South of Tasmania, hundreds of undersea mountains mark the deep ocean floor. Now, a monthlong survey of these seamounts in and around Australia's Huon and Tasman Fracture marine parks has…

A newly discovered species of amphibian that is related to the notorious Brazilian 'penis snake' has been named after President Donald Trump in a charity auction benefiting the Rainforest Trust,…

Researchers have described a new species of giant salamander that has remained shrouded in mystery for several decades. Known from swamps in Alabama and Florida in the southern United States,…

Microbiomes of Venezuela’s lost glaciers, mile-high Andean lizards, and starving baby seals are among the recent top stories from Mongabay Latam, our Spanish-language service. The abandoned microbes of Venezuela’s last…

Franciso Sornoza, an ornithologist at the National Institute of Biodiversity in Quito, Ecuador, was hiking in the country’s southwestern highlands when a small bird caught his eye. It was perched…

“To leave my dream was difficult, but I had to do it for my son,” says Ileana Herrera, a former ecologist from Venezuela, now living in Ecuador. Herrera, like many…

New findings indicate that at current deforestation rates, all of Haiti’s primary forest will be gone within the next two decades, leading to the loss of most of the country’s…

From lavender to orange, pink to yellow polka dots — researchers have just described 17 stunning new species of sea slugs that live among coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific region.…

At first glance, the slender-snouted crocodiles living in Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa look very similar to the ones in the Gambia River in West Africa. But as it turns…

JAKARTA — Less than a decade after the world was introduced to the latest species of Asian leaf-warblers, a new songbird of that group has now been described by scientists.…

Scientists searching for snake-like amphibians discovered a new species of swamp eel living in the rainforest of northeastern India. According to a paper published in the journal of Ichthyological Exploration…

Nearly 70 years ago, Edwin Ujor of the Nigerian Forestry Service collected a specimen of a tree from a forest high up in the Bamenda highlands in Cameroon. The specimen…

In a remote part of the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil, researchers have found a stunning pink-and-white neon-colored fish that’s new to science. Luiz Rocha, an ichthyologist at the California Academy…