Q. I thought we were losing species worldwide, but I have read about DNA being used to discover a new salamander, lizard, flower, etc. How do scientists know when they have found a new species not already known to science?
A. We are indeed losing species on a global scale at a much faster rate than we discover new ones. Reports of discoveries of new species can be misleading, because all of them were already here. They just had not yet been identified by humans, which leads to the answer to the question.
The first step in discovering a new species is knowing which ones have already been documented. It typically takes an expert in a particular taxonomic group to recognize a species as new to science. Ecologists who explore regions where they are not familiar with the plants and animals read field guides about the flora and fauna. Such books have photographs or drawings and written descriptions of size, color, and general appearance of species. They include information about geographic ranges and the ecology of species. Examining museum specimens to learn about variations among species in a taxonomic group can also be important, as can a thorough review of scientific journals that might refer to the group of organisms in question.
The most likely places for new species to be discovered are unpopulated regions, especially in the tropics. For example, new species of bats are continuing to be described in Madagascar; a new monkey has been found in Tanzania; and a new species in the violet family was reported this year in the Philippines. To know the species were new, the scientists describing them had to be familiar with the particular taxonomic group and know traits of every known species in the world that could be related to it.
Read more: ECOVIEWS: How do scientists know they have found a new species? | Aiken Standard
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