Animal Discoveries

Animal Discoveries

Introduction If you wanted to find a new animal species, where would you look? You might look in remote corners of the globe. Scientists find more than 15, 000 animal species each year. That's 1 percent of the more than 1. 5 million species we know about already. At the same time, species are dying out at record rates around the globe. For this reason, when we do stumble on a new species, it is an important discovery.

Monkey Mania In 2007, a new species of monkey was found in the forests of Central Africa. The lesula has large eyes and is shy and quiet. The first one found by scientists was being kept as a pet. In 2010, scientists found the Caquetá titi monkey by listening to its calls. This monkey lives in the Amazon jungle. The Caquetá is known for its bushy red beard. It doesn't have a white bar on its forehead as other titi monkeys do. Its babies purr like cats. Only around 250 Caquetá titi monkeys are alive today, meaning the species is endangered.

Freaky, Fabulous Frogs The Matang narrow-mouthed frog is the size of a pea. It was discovered on the island of Borneo in 2010. It turns out that scientists had seen these frogs before. They thought the frogs were the young of a different species. Then, they heard the frogs calling. Since only adult frogs make calls, they realized that these tiny frogs must be full-grown.

A scientist discovered the long-nosed tree frog in 2010. This frog lives in the Foja Mountains of New Guinea. The area has been called the " Lost World. " This tree frog is known for its long nose. It is sometimes called the Pinocchio frog. When the male frog calls, its nose points up. When the frog is done calling, its nose falls. No one knows why.

Furry Finds Another find during the 2010 Foja Mountains trip was the blossom bat. It uses its long tongue to drink nectar from flowers. During a 2005 trip to Madagascar, researchers found Goodman's mouse lemurs. Not much bigger than mice, these tiny lemurs jump around in the trees at night. During the daytime, they sometimes sleep in empty birds' nests.