Scientists named a staggering 190 new species in 2024. The list, which comes from London’s Natural History Museum (NHM) and elsewhere, includes a vegetarian piranha and a rat endemic to a single Indonesian island.
Vegetarian piranha
Myloplus sauron was discovered in the Xingu River in Brazil. New research showed that Myloplus schomburgkii, a fish that scientists believed was one species, should be split into three. The three species had subtle differences in their scales, coloration, and proportions, as well as clear genetic differences. Because of its red fins and black stripe, researchers named one of the fish after Tolkien’s Eye of Sauron.
Myloplus sauron. Photo: Mark H. Sabaj
This species highlights one of the reasons it is so important to continue naming new species. Brazil is building dams across Myloplus sauron’s habitat. When the government green-lit the project, evaluators grossly underestimated the river’s species diversity.
“We didn’t know how many endemic species are there,” one scientist explained. “But since these projects launched, we’re finding that there’s probably upward of 70 endemic species in this very small region in the Xingu River.”
Simply put, researchers and conservationists cannot protect species if they do not know they exist.
“To fix our broken planet, we need to keep learning about how life evolves and how vital its diversity is in keeping nature healthy. Naming new species helps us do just that,” Tim Littlewood, Director of Science at the NHM, commented.
Discoveries in surprising places
Other discoveries include a moth from a living room in Wales and the most complete dinosaur discovered in the UK in a century.
A young ecologist caught a photo of the moth in Wales when it fluttered into their living room. They didn’t know what it was but posted the picture on social media, where it caught a researcher’s eye. Named Carmenta brachyclados, the clear-winged moth is native to Guyana in South America.
Carmenta brachyclados is a new species of moth native to Guyana. Photo: Mark Sterling
The NHM named the UK dinosaur, Comptonatus chasei, partly after Nick Chase, the fossil hunter who unearthed the skeleton in 2013.
There were many other newly described species of dinosaur, including a pterosaur from the Isle of Skye, a stegosaur from China, and a sauropodomorph from Zimbabwe.
Comptonatus chasei is the most complete UK dinosaur discovered in a century. Photo: Dinosaur Isle
The 2024 list also includes a dozen new species of beetle, over 50 Bryzoans (aquatic invertebrates), a fossil poo named after author AA Milne, five species of snake, three species of Candiru catfish (famed for swimming up urethras), several frog species, and a rat only found on the Indonesian island of Obi.
A full list of the new species can be found here.
