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Wadi Wurayah teams with life as 55 new species are discovered

Wadi Wurayah continues to be a stronghold for wildlife in the UAE with the discovery of 55 new species, including a shiny golden bug called Sphenoptera vanharteni, and a long-legged elegant ant: Lepisiota elegantissima, in addition to a tiny gecko:Asaccus gallagheri. The findings are a result of continued research, collaboration and verification by Emirates Wildlife Society in association with WWF (EWS-WWF), Fujairah Municipality and local authorities.

New Shark Species found in fish market

Fish taxonomists found the previously unknown shark at a market in Taiwan—no big surprise, according to study co-author William White.

“Most fish markets in the region will regularly contain sharks,” White, of theCommonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Hobart, Australia, said via email.

In fact, he and a colleague had headed to the Tashi Fish Market specifically to “collect some material and to see whether there were noticeable differences in the [shark] catches from previous decades,” he said.

“Amongst a number of other species, we collected a number of Squalusspecies—one of which was this new high-fin species.”

The new species, Squalus formosus, is a three-foot-long (one-meter-long) short-nosed dogfish. It’s distinguished from other dogfish species in theSqualus genusby a particularly upright first fin on its back, a strong spine, and a very short, rounded head, White said.

Scientists discover new monkey species in Amazon

Scientists on an expedition backed by WWF-Brazil to one of the last unexplored areas in the Brazilian Mid-west have discovered a new species of monkey.

The monkey belonging to the Callicebus genus was found in the northwest of Mato Grosso State and is one of the great results from the studies undertaken during an expedition in December 2010 to the Guariba-Roosevelt Extractive Reserve. 

More reasons why I should live on Sulawesi! 2 - 4 new shrew species discovered.

A research expedition has turned up two to four new species of shrew on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, reports a conservation group working to protect their forest habitat. 

Jake Esselstyn of McMaster University and Anang Setiawan Achmadi of Indonesia’s Museum of Zoology in Bogor led the survey of Mount Tompotika, a 1,600-meter high mountain in eastern Sulawesi. The researchers identified 3-4 shrew species over about a week of surveying this past April. Only one of the shrews — Crocidura elongata — was known to science.