SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry has released the list of top 10 new species discovered in 2015.
Every year ESF’s International Institute for Species Exploration or IISE compiles the list.
The animals included in the list exhibit unusual traits, and two of the animals were noted for their offbeat parenting techniques, one was the frog who was found to give birth to live tadpoles instead of laying eggs, and the other was wasp who used dead ants to protect its nursery.
Other animals included in the list are a cartwheeling spider, a fish that wriggles around on the sea floor to create a circular nesting site, a bird like dinosaur.
Other new findings may represent entire new phylum, taking the findings to a step further. These were nine inch walking stick and a photogenic sea slug.
Finally the list ends with red and green plant used for holiday celebration in Mexico and a coral that was determined to be endangered.
Quentin Wheeler, ESF president and founding director of the IISE said, “The last vast unexplored frontier on Earth is the biosphere. We have only begun to explore the astonishing origin, history, and diversity of life.”
According to scientists there are at least 10 million species which are hiding in nature and yet to be discovered.
Wheeler said, “An inventory of plants and animals begun in the 18th century continues apace with the discovery of about 18,000 additional species each year. The nearly 2 million species named to date represent a small fraction of an estimated 12 million.”
Wheeler added, “Among the remaining 10 million are irreplaceable clues to our own origins, a detailed blueprint of how the biosphere self-organized, and precious clues to better, more efficient, and more sustainable ways to meet human needs while conserving wild living things. It is time to mount a mission to planet Earth to distinguish, describe, name and classify its life-forms before it is too late. The Top 10 is a reminder of the wonders awaiting us.”