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. You might also look under a microscope to see how one species is different from another. Scientists discover 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 the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The lesula has large eyes and is shy and quiet. The first one found by scientists was being kept as a pet. The Caquetá titi monkey lives in the Amazon jungle with about twenty other species of titi monkey. 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 Borneo, an island in Southeast Asia, in 2010. It turns out that scientists had seen these frogs before but thought they 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 herpetologist discovered the long- nosed tree frog in 2010 while exploring the Foja Mountains of New Guinea. The area is so remote that it has been called the “ Lost World. " This tree frog is known for its long, unique nose. When the male frog calls, its nose points up like a spike. When the frog is done calling, its nose falls. No one knows why. The frog has another name: the Pinocchio frog. The herpetologist spotted it sitting on a bag of rice in his campsite.

Furry Finds Another find during the 2010 Foja Mountains trip was the blossom bat. Although bats are mammals, this one has been called the “ hummingbird of the bat world. " It uses its long tongue to drink nectar from the flowers of rainforest trees. During a 2005 expedition to another island-Madagascar-researchers found Goodman's mouse lemurs. Not much bigger than mice, these tiny lemurs jump around in the trees at night. In the daytime, they sometimes sleep in empty birds' nests.