Species Discovery News

MANILA — The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 spewed enough volcanic ash into the atmosphere to cool the world. In the immediate vicinity of the volcano,…

Frank Glaw is no stranger to discovery. The German herpetologist has helped describe scores of new species from Madagascar, but the latest one is special: Brookesia nana is arguably the…

An orange-furred bat, new to science, has been described from the caves and mining tunnels of the Nimba Mountains in Guinea, West Africa.  A group of researchers, led by the…

On an expedition in the tepuis, or “sprouting rock,” landscape of the Guiana Highlands in South America, Mateusz Wrazidlo snapped a photo of an orchid he had never seen before.…

On a calm, cloudy morning in May 2019, a lookout on a research vessel lowered his binoculars and shouted, “Beaked whales! Beaked whales!” As Massimiliano Rosso, one of the scientists…

There’s nowhere on Earth quite like Madagascar when it comes to the sheer wealth and wonder of biodiversity. But along with its natural richness, the island nation is beset by…

In this well-trodden world, the discovery of a species new to science is an exciting event, a glimmer of the uncharted riches of biodiversity still hidden around the globe. “Every…

1. The ocean in a worldwide pandemic As the year that challenged the world with a widespread pandemic draws to a close, COVID-19 has affected almost every aspect of life…

An expedition into the cloud forests of the Bolivian Andes has uncovered 20 species new to science, including a frog that may be the smallest in the Andes, a new…

When a trio of beaked whales surfaced off Mexico’s Pacific coast, researchers thought they’d found the elusive Perrin’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon perrini), an endangered species that’s never been officially sighted…

There’s a new kid in town: a gray-furred langur with white-rimmed eyes and a fluffy head has just been announced as a new primate species. The Popa langur (Trachypithecus popa),…

Armed with headlamps and flashlights, a team of researchers in northwestern Madagascar searched through the night for an elusive chameleon, Voeltzkow’s chameleon (Furcifer voeltzkowi), which hadn’t been spotted for more…

Outer space, the ocean depths and quantum physics are areas ripe for discovery, the underexplored frontiers of science. But another frontier may be hidden in plain sight, right under your…

Latin America has more than twice as many plant species as tropical Africa and Southeast Asia, accounting for about a third of global biological diversity, concludes a new study published…

A first-of-its-kind study conducted within the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve's Intangible Zone (IZ) in Ecuador and captured in the film “Yasuní Man,” can now be found on streaming services. The zone is…

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Traditionally called radaka, large frog species endemic to Madagascar are appreciated for their delicate taste, which is similar to chicken. Although people have hunted the frogs for…

In the Wai‘anae Mountains, a range on the western side of O‘ahu, Hawaii, a group of scientists were surveying the land for tiny, terrestrial snails when they came across something…

When searching for mouse lemurs in Madagascar's forests, scientists seek out their gleaming eyes in the dark. Their eyes are large for an animal about the size of a fist…

The state of Pará’s Calha Norte region, one of the Amazon’s least studied areas, is the planet’s largest mosaic of protected forests. It is a rich reserve of biodiversity facing threats from illegal land occupation and deforestation. Species could disappear even before they are discovered.

COLOMBO — Getting out of their vehicle in the middle of the night, armed with small digging tools, UV lights and headlamps, the members of the research team looked like…

COLOMBO — For nearly a decade, siblings and scientists Dineth Danushka and Suneth Kanishka have been making field visits to study Dendrelaphis bifrenalis, a snake known as the Boulenger’s bronzeback,…

COLOMBO — Sri Lankan researchers have described the first ever species of jumping spiders from the genus Synagelides that are native to the Indian Ocean island, identifying not one but…

BOGOR, Indonesia — For nearly a century it was thought to be a separate population of a gecko species found in Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island. Now, the bent-toed gecko found in…

COLOMBO — A rare new orchid described from a tropical lowland rainforest in Sri Lanka now bears the name of two of the island’s pioneering forest ecologists. A new paper…

A 66-million-year-old fossil has allowed scientists to describe a bizarre new species of mammal that lived in Madagascar during the time of the dinosaurs. They’ve christened it Adalatherium hui, which in Malagasy…

A new green pit viper species discovered in a Himalayan biodiversity hotspot has been named Trimeresurus Salazar, or the Salazar’s pit viper, after Salazar Slytherin, a character from J.K. Rowling's…

For more than 180 years, several soft-nosed chameleons from Madagascar sat together in a single species complex (Calumma nasutum) until scientists decided to take a closer look. They disentangled the…

Researchers have described a new species of praying mantis from Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, adding to the 250 known mantis species native to the country.

A new species of frog endemic to the Western Ghats, a mountain range in India that is considered a global biodiversity hotspot, is the first new addition to the genus…

Researchers have discovered 15 new wasp species in lowland Amazon rainforests and Andean cloud forests that parasitize spiders in a “complex way.” The discoveries were made by a research group…