Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

tags: new species, Papua New Guinea, Zoology, Biodiversity

A brilliant green tree tree frog with giant black eyes, tentatively classified as a Nyctimystes species, is one of 56 new species of animals discovered during a 2008 expedition to the remote island of Papua New Guinea.

This species of frog is specially adapted to its habitat of rushing freshwater rivers: females lay their eggs underneath river stones, and tadpoles have mouths that suction onto slippery rock surfaces.

Another new frog species, Litoria species (below), found in the protected Kaijende highlands, is also nicely adapted to its rushing river home: its mating call is loud and ringing so it can be heard above rushing mountain streams.

These large forests are home to the Hewa people, whose "intimate knowledge and stewardship" of the forest has kept the land and wildlife pristine, according to research by William Thomas, an anthropologist at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

But these discoveries are just the beginning. Papua New Guinea, an island I've been fascinated by since childhood, is a remote "lost world" filled with peculiar animals, plants and peoples that have never been seen by modern scientists.

"If you're finding things that are that big and that spectacular that are new, that's really an indication that there's a lot out there that we don't know about," said expedition leader Steve Richards. "It never ceases to amaze me the spectacular things that are turning up from that island."

The 2008 expedition consisted of scientists from Conservation International, the University of British Columbia in Canada and Montclair State University in New Jersey, as well as local scientists from Papua New Guinea. This international team documented more than 600 species of amphibians, mammals, birds, reptiles, plants, and invertebrates.

A unique Cyrtodactylus bent-toed gecko is yet another species that is new to science (above) and the team also discovered 3 new genera and roughly 50 new species of jumping spiders on this expedition (below);

The new jumping spiders represent "strikingly distinctive evolutionary lineages that had been unknown before, with a group that is already very distinctive on the evolutionary tree of jumping spiders," stated spider expert, Wayne Maddison of the University of British Columbia.

Conservation International plans to conduct three more expeditions to Papua New Guinea in 2009, in the hopes of turning up even more new animals.

"Most of us live in urban worlds where we think everything's totally well known," said Bruce Beehler of Conservation International. "It's a little bit of a reminder, just a wake up call, that we really need to know our world better so we can manage it better."

Source:

Conservation International.