May 28, 2018 by Sean Greene, Los
Angeles Times
The highest branches of a Brazilian
forest. The permanent darkness of a cave in China. The deepest place on Earth.
Life has carved niches for itself
in the most extreme and stunning habitats. As a result, it has taken on
surprising—and just plain weird—physical attributes and behaviors.
In celebration of this
biodiversity, the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry has
compiled a list of the Top 10 new species that were described by science in the
previous year.
"I'm constantly amazed at
how many new species show up and the range of things that are discovered,"
Quentin Wheeler, the college's president and founding director of the
International Institute for Species Exploration, said in a statement.
This year's list includes a
rare great ape, a
hitchhiking beetle, an extinct omnivorous marsupial lion and many species that
are critically endangered. As humans alter habitats and contribute to global climate change, species
are going extinct at a faster rate than we can name them.
"If we don't find them,
(these species) will be lost forever," Wheeler said. "And yet they
can teach us so much about the intricacies of ecosystems and the details of
evolutionary history. Each of them has found a way to survive against the odds
of changing competition, climate and environmental conditions."
Here are the creatures that made
the 2018 Top 10 list:
A MYSTERIOUS SINGLE-CELLED
ORGANISM
Ancoracysta twista
Location: Unknown
This microscopic marvel is unlike
anything scientists have ever seen.
Researchers at the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography in San Diego discovered the protist living on a
brain coral in a tropical aquarium. The organism propels itself with a
whip-like tail, called a flagella, and uses unusual harpoon-like structures to
stun and consume other protists. Because scientists found the species in
captivity, they can't be sure of its geographic origins in the wild.
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