“10 Newly Discovered Species for 2018”! #scienceforthewin

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“10 Newly Discovered Species for 2018”! #scienceforthewin

How fun and fascinating?

These 10 (plus many more) newly discovered species are found in video form and with more textual details in the link, below. Here is the shortened list:

  1. Xenoturbella churro = a new marine worm that resembles…yes, a churro (Mexican, sugared, fried, oblong snack, kind of like a doughnut in cruller shape, usually dipped in sauces), that is kind of large, “between 4 and 10 inches,” and carnivorous: it “feeds off mollusks like clams.”


    Xenoturbella churro, image from https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/churro-marine-worm-discovered-scripps-scientists-one-top-10-species-2017

  2. TO BE NAMED: a new, bright blue tarantula, discovered by some random guy (maybe it will be named after him, which would be “Andrew Snyder”?). It is the “first blue tarantula found in South America” because they’re usually in “Southeast Asia, and secondly, this one was living in a colony, which is very unusual for spiders.”
  3. Deadly Fruit is actually not new; been known for over 50 years. Named by Australian 7th-graders due to its characteristics. This “obscure relative of the tomato…when cut open, the flesh of the fruit changes from whitish green to blood red and then matures into a dry, white bony state.”
  4. The Devil Orchid aka Telipogon diabolicus, is said to resemble the “head of the Devil” (?), but what I found fascinating is its hermaphroditic status, because it is said to be “a fusion of male and female flower parts.” Found, but may soon be lost, in Columbia’s reconstruction zone.
  5. NOT YET NAMED, a new gecko, astonishing because it can elude predators by completely shedding its overlapping scales, then regrow them within a few weeks.
  6. Plenaster craigi is a newish species of abyssal sponge, actually discovered in 2013 but confirmed in 2017, in The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), the East Pacific Ocean near Singapore. It survives in total darkness and eats “metal-rich nodules.”
  7. Arcella gandalfi is a kind of single-celled but large freshwater amoeba—“quite big, measuring 81 micrometers in diameter and 71 micrometers in height”—found in Brazil. Yes, it vaguely resembles the hat worn by the character, Gandalf, as seen in the trilogy of films based on the J.R.R. Tolkein books, The Lord of the Rings.
  8. Pink Floyd pistol shrimp is “a new species of snapping shrimp found in the waters off the Pacific coast of Panama.” Besides its neon pink claw, this predator is LOUD! It “can kill its prey with noise! The snap of that giant claw is loud and powerful that it creates cavitation bubbles, which then burst into the prey, either stunning them or killing them. The sound reaches levels of 210 decibels, which is louder than a gunshot!”
  9. UNNAMED SO FAR, an ancient giant sloth fossil (up to 500 lbs, estimated) was found “in an underwater cave in the jungle of the Yucatán in Mexico.” Notable both for its huge size and the location (most fossils decay rapidly in this area of high humidity). No live ones spotted, though.
  10. NOT YET NAMED a hermit crab with a sea anemone fastened onto its back is a new dual species found in South African, only about 2 – 3 inches long.

All quotes and info, above, are from this page, below, has the “top 10,” plus 11 more, plus even more and more links to other new-ishly discovered species:
https://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/top-10-newly-discovered-species-for-2018/