It’s that time of year when scientific organizations look back at some of the amazing new animals, plants, fungi and other species they’ve discovered in the past 12 months.
“Finding and describing new species is critical to understanding our planet’s biodiversity and protecting it from further loss,” said Shannon Bennett, senior scientist at the California Academy of Sciences, in a statement. news release reporting 138 new species found by its scientists in 2024. They range from the sponge-dwelling goby in Indonesian waters to the endangered dahlia from Oaxaca, Mexico.
Bennett said that so far, only 10 species of living things have been found in the world, and many of them can be important to the environment in which they are found. “We can’t protect or care about what we don’t know exists.”
Scientists at the Natural History Museum in London reported the discovery of 190 new species by 2024but its list includes fossils in addition to living creatures such as the defoliating moth and the vegetable piranha named for its resemblance to the Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings a trilogy.
Currently, Kew Gardens London and scientific publisher Pensoft each released a top 10 list of their favorite discoveries of the past year.
Scouring science news releases from 2024 also revealed some treasures, including the world’s largest hummingbird and a new armadillo.
Here are a few of the best finds.
‘Starry night’ gecko
This small lizard was found in the South Western Ghats, a mountain range of India. When announcing the discovery in March, Ishan Agarwal, a researcher at the Thackeray Wildlife Foundation, said its background reminded researchers of the famous work of 19th-century Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. “The bright color of the new type reminds us of one of his most striking paintings, Starry Night.”
Description of new, officially named species Cnemaspis vangoghiwas published in ZooKeys magazine. Its publisher, Pensoft, has given it the No. 1 spot on its list of Top 10 new brands of 2024. It says they were selected from new species described in its journals and were not based on any particular method, but were “totally absurd” and a “fun way” to look back at the year’s weird and wonderful discoveries.
‘Black-souled’ Aphelandra
Despite this plant’s beautiful pink flowers and the challenges of up to 110 flowers each, Kew Gardens has placed it at number 3 in their top 10 list. Found in the dry forests of northwestern Colombia, it is related to the zebra plant, a popular plant grown in Brazil. Like its relative, the new species, Aphelandra almanegra, “has a lot of potential as a houseplant,” wrote Sebastian Kettley and Martin Cheek of Kew Gardens, who compiled the list. “Unfortunately, the destruction of its habitat means it is at risk of extinction.”
The ‘Eye of Sauron’ is a fish
The list of the Natural History Museum includes many interesting finds, including a vegetable piranha called pacu from the Xingu River in Brazil. Museum scientists were on hand to document freshwater fauna, including some that have yet to be discovered, that may contribute to the creation of The controversial Belo Monte dam. Rupert Collins, chief curator of fish at the museum, said one of the reasons why projects like this are allowed is that the number of unique species that will be affected is underestimated. “Actually, we don’t fully know what lives in these places,” he said. The new pacu has been named Myloplus sauron because of its similarity to the Eye of Sauron, from Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s. The Lord of the Rings a trilogy.
Cadet cleaner
A girl named Daisy Cadet found this unusual bug in her living room in Port Talbot, Wales, and posted it on Instagram. One of her followers suggested she contact a British charity called Butterfly Conservation, which put her in touch with the Natural History Museum. Some sleuthing eventually revealed that it had hatched from a piece of seed that had been stuck in the boot of Cadet’s mother, Ashleigh, a professional photographer, when she flew home from an assignment in central Guyana. Mark Sterling, a researcher at the Natural History Museum, helped identify it as a weevil and name a new species. Carmenta brachyclados, announcing the discovery in October.
A fish that lives in a sponge
Scientists at the California Academy of Sciences, based in San Francisco, discovered 35 new fish by 2024, including this goby from Indonesian waters. Although its closest relatives are free-living fish that live in the shallow ocean less than 10 meters deep, the new species, Bathygobius meroit makes its home in a large barrel sponge in deep water, between nine and 30 meters below the surface.
The largest hummingbird in the world
Although larger animals are usually easier to spot than smaller ones, it took until 2024 to find the southern giant hummingbird, the world’s largest. It turns out that a different type of large hummingbird led scientists to the discovery. Known species, Patagonia gigasthey breed on the Pacific coast of central Chile but disappear after the breeding season. Researchers from the University of New Mexico, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Centro de OrnitologÃa y Biodiversidad in Peru decided to track them by attaching small GPS backpacks. They discovered that these birds fly high in the Andes mountains, as far north as Peru. There, they live among an even larger hummingbird, a new species, which lives in high altitudes year-round. A new species has been named Patagona chaski after the chaski messenger of the Inca empire.
A new Andean glass frog
A glossy green frog with lavender eyes was among two new species of frog found in the southern Andes of Ecuador. Glass frogs are a group of amphibians whose hearts can be seen beating through their luminous bellies. The most widespread was thought to be Buckley’s glass frog, which is found in much of the tropical Andes. But new research published in August it showed that what was thought to be one species was actually several, with different physical characteristics, calls and genetics. One of the new species, shown above, is named Marco Reyes’ glass frog, Centrolene marcoreyesiafter a well-known late veterinarian at the National Institute of Biodiversity of Ecuador.
Long-nosed Guianan armadillo
The new 2024 species include a number of mammals, including rats, mice and the first new armadillo species in 30 years. Like Buckley’s glass frogs, nine-banded armadillos were thought to have a large range. But genetic testing shows that they are actually four species, including one that is slightly larger than the other three and lives in the northeastern part of South America called the Guiana Shield – the long-nosed Guiana armadillo, Dasypus guianensis.
A new parasiteid wasp from Texas
Although many of these new species were found in exotic locations, there are new creatures waiting to be discovered even in North American cities. A new type of wasp, Chrysonotomyia susbellilocated on the campus of Rice University in Houston. “You don’t have to go to a remote rainforest to find new and beautiful things — you have to go outside and look,” said Scott Egan, associate professor of bioscience. A wasp was found inside the gallbladder, a tumor-like growth, made by a wasp called Neuroterus bussaein the leaves of southern oak trees. It belongs to the group of parasitoid wasps, which feed on the larvae of other insects, but is the first of its kind known to target that type of gall.
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