Another new narrow-mouthed frog species discovered in Coastal Karnataka

After the Microhyla laterite that was described from Manipal in 2016, scientists have found another new narrow-mouthed frog from the city centre of Mangaluru, in coastal Karnataka. 

The coastal city of Mangaluru in Karnataka now has a new feather in its cap with the discovery of a new species of narrow-mouthed frog. Named after Mangaluru, called kodial in the Konkani language, Microhyla kodial was first spotted in Mangaluru. The newly discovered species is the 10th species of Microhyla from India.

A joint effort by a team comprising Vineeth Kumar K, Department of Applied Zoology, Mangalore University, Mangalagangothri, Konaje, Radhakrishna Upadhyaya K, Department of Applied Zoology, Mangalore University, Mangalagangothri, Konaje, Prof. Rajashekhar K Patil , Department of Applied Zoology, Mangalore University, Mangalagangothri, Konaje, Godwin Rodny D’Souza, St. Aloysius Pre University College, Mangalore, Anwesha Saha, Suri Sehgal Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), and Dr. N. A. Aravind Madhyastha, Suri Sehgal Centre for =read more

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ANIMALS

Bizarre New Species of Crabs and a Giant Sea Cockroach Discovered in Waters Off Indonesia

BY EMILY PETSKO

 

MAY 14, 2018

One known species of isopod, or "giant sea cockroach"

ISTOCK

A crab with green googly eyes, another with "ears" resembling peanuts, and a species of giant sea cockroach are among the dozen new kinds of crustaceans discovered by scientists in the waters off Indonesia, Channel News Asia reports.

These finds are the result of a two-week expedition by Indonesian and Singaporean scientists with the South Java Deep Sea Biodiversity Expedition (SJADES 2018), which involved exploring deep waters in the Sunda Strait (the waterway separating the islands of Sumatra and Java in Southeast Asia) and the Indian Ocean. Using trawls, dredges, and other tools, researchers brought a huge variety of deep-sea life to the surface—some species for the very first time.

"The world down there is an alien world," Peter Ng, chief scientist of the expedition, told Channel News Asia. "You have waters that go down more than 2000 to 3000 meters [9800 feet], and we do not know … the animal life that's at the bottom.=read more

Is this hairy crab the newest species found in the UK?

A colony of exploding ants, a shrimp that's been named after prog rockers Pink Floyd, four types of miniature night frog and a coconut-cracking giant rat - these are just some of the new species discovered in the past year.

While all of these exotic creatures were found many thousands of miles away from Britain, such discoveries aren't the preserve of scientists in the remotest part of some far-flung wilderness. In fact, it's estimated there are thousands of species yet to be identified in the UK alone - and many millions globally.

The hairy crab that's potentially the latest new-to-science domestic discovery was collected by naturalist and photographer Steve Trewhella on Chesil Beach, near Weymouth, in Dorset.

The 2cm-wide creature was found living inside a polystyrene buoy that washed ashore following a storm and is suspected to have travelled across the Atlantic from the Caribbean.

Mr Trewhella, who has sent the crab to the Natural History Museum for identification, hopes the tiny crustacean could prove to be his greatest success story.=read more

cryptic teeth

• MORE

A baby nile crocodile

Credit: Jeffrey Govender/Shutterstock

For nearly 50 years, researchers have found mysterious, disembodied teeth dating to the dinosaur age in southern Alberta, Canada. The teeth lacked jawbones, so researchers weren't sure what animals these teeth came from, although many suspected the pointy chompers belonged to ancient birds.

Now, new research is turning that idea on its head: These cryptic teeth aren't avian in nature, but likely those of juvenile crocodilians, said Sydney Mohr, a master's student in biological sciences at the University of Alberta, who is rstudying the teeth.

"They've basically always been referred to as bird teeth," Mohr said, "but with not much evidence to back that up." [Images: How the Bird Beak Evolved]=read more

18-Inch Rat Species Discovered

A rare new species of rat — up to four times the size of the rodents that populate American cities — has been identified in the Solomon Islands.

The discovery marks the first time in 80 years that a new rat species has been found in the archipelago in the South Pacific.

In 2010, mammalogist Tyrone Lavery heard rumors about a coconut-cracking giant rat called "vika" that lived in the trees of Vangunu Island. People on the island even had songs and children's rhymes about the rats. But after several surveys, Lavery couldn't find the creature.

"I started to question if it really was a separate species, or if people were just calling regular black rats 'vika,'" Lavery said in a statement from The Field Museum in Chicago, where he is a postdoctoral researcher. [Rats and Lizards and Monkeys, Oh My! 9 Islands Ruled by Animals]

Then, in 2015, a ranger captured one of the rats as it scurried out of a felled tree.=read more

Dinosaur dandduff

A pile of dandruff shed by dinosaurs roughly  125million years ago have been  discovered in Liaoing province in China.The white fry white flecks are almost identical to human dandruff and measure 1 to 2 millimetres and made up of  keratin.It's is believed that their May have come from Microraptor ,Beipiaosaurus and Sinornithosaurus dinosaurs and Confuciusornis Bird.It shows that they shed skin in clumps rather than in one go like modern snakes and lizards.

New species of shrew discovered living on a single remote mountain in the Philippines

Scientists have discovered a new species of shrew living on a single mountain in the Philippines - and it remains a mystery how it got there.

The Palawan moss shrew is one of three species unique to Mount Mantalingahan on Palawan Island. 

It was first spotted in 2007 by the late Danilo 'Danny' Balete. Unlike other shrews, its tail is covered in dense fur rather than visible scales.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5715817/Species-shrew-discovered-mountain-Philippines-no-one-knows-got-there.html#ixzz5FIDO9leq
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Six new peeping frogs discovered in western Mexico

• Scientists have discovered six new species of peeping frog in the western Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacán.
• All six frogs belong to the genus Eleutherodactylus and were described in the journal Mesoamerican Herpetology last month. According to the authors of the article describing the new species, Eleutherodactylus frogs “are among the most diverse and taxonomically challenging groups of amphibians in the New World.”
• The genus Eleutherodactylus consists of five subgenera, four of which are native solely to the West Indies and are relatively well-studied. The six newly discovered frogs belong to the fifth subgenus, Syrrhophus, a group that has received less attention from scientists.

Scientists have discovered six new species of peeping frog in the western Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacán.

All six frogs belong to the genus Eleutherodactylus and were described in the journal Mesoamerican Herpetology last month. According to the authors of the article describing the new species, Eleutherodactylus frogs “are among the most diverse and taxonomically challenging groups of amphibians in the New World.”

The genus Eleutherodactylus consists of five subgenera, four of which are native solely to the West Indies and are relatively well-studied. The six newly discovered frogs belong to the fifth subgenus, Syrrhophus, a group that has received less attention from =read more

New ocean layer discovered

A deep-sea mission in the ocean around Bermuda confirms the existence of a new oceanic zone 

‘You almost pinch yourself and think you’re on some distant planet,’ explains Professor Alex Rogers as he reminisces about his dives into the deep ocean around Bermuda. For him, every trip in the Triton submarine, whose clear dome provides an unprecedented view of the ocean’s inhabitants, is magical. ‘There’s always something novel to see and the landscapes are fantastical. It’s a very humbling experience,’ he adds.

Rogers is a co-founder of Nekton, an organisation exploring the depths of the ocean for the benefit of humankind. In July 2016, Rogers and a team of marine scientists launched Nekton’s ‘Mission I’ to investigate the ocean around Bermuda, the Sargasso Sea and the northwest Atlantic. During the mission, dive teams, manned submarines and remote-controlled vehicles collected thousands of samples from the ocean’s surface down to 1,500 metres. Now, nearly two years later, the results of the mission have been processed and the team has announced some striking finds.=read more

For The First Time, This Asian Tick Species Has Been Found In The US

The tick is called the longhorned or bush tick, and its scientific name is Haemaphysalis longicornis. It is native to China, Japan, and Korea, and it's an invasive species and a major livestock pest in Australia and New Zealand.

Hundreds of the arachnids can attach themselves to a single animal, and in rare cases can consume so much blood it causes anemia or even fatalities in cattle, which is called exsanguination.

The ticks were first seen in the United States in New Jersey on Aug. 1, 2017, when a woman reported to the Hunterdon County Department of Health that her pet sheep was covered in hundreds, maybe thousands of the ticks. The woman, who first noticed them when she was shearing her sheep, also had the ticks on her clothing.

The sheep's paddock was so infested with ticks that they crawled on the health investigators' pants as soon as they stepped inside. The good news is that the woman was not bitten by =read more

Temperature-controlled turtle sex gene found

Scientists have isolated the gene responsible for temperature-controlled sex determination in turtles.

Red eared slider turtles, a common household pet, develop into male or female embryos according to their egg incubation temperature.

This little understood process is also at work in the eggs of crocodiles, alligators and some lizards.

Researchers are now one step closer to solving a mystery which has persisted for over 50 years.

Genetic 'knockout'

An international team from China and the United States used a recently refined process to "knock out" the gene they suspected to be responsible for sex determination in the turtles - known as Kdm6b.

"Knockouts come in several flavours," explained Prof Blanche Capel from Duke University, an author on the study. "It usually means a genetic manipulation that deletes a gene from the genome or blocks its function."=read more

Red squirrels 'may have introduced' leprosy to Britain

Red squirrels may have brought leprosy to Britain more than 1,000 years ago, scientists have said.

Swiss researchers said DNA taken from a fifth-century victim of the disease in Essex revealed the same strain of leprosy carried by red squirrels today.

The discovery supports the theory that the rodents, once prized for their meat and fur, played a role in the spread of the disease throughout medieval Europe.

Grey squirrels were not introduced to the UK until the 19th Century=read more

Origins of amphibian-killing fungus uncovered

A deadly fungus that has ravaged amphibian populations worldwide probably originated in East Asia, new research suggests.

A study in Science journal supports an idea that the pet trade helped spread killer strains of the chytrid fungus around the globe.

The fungus is a major cause of the devastating declines experienced by frogs, toads, newts and salamanders.

There is no known effective measure for controlling the disease.

The authors of the report highlight the need to tighten biosecurity along country borders, including a potential ban on the trade in amphibians as pets.

The chytrid fungus, known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd, was first identified as a problem in the 1990s, said co-author Dr Simon O'Hanlon, from Imperial College London.=read more

Cuckoo bee species 'hiding in plain sight'

Scientists have discovered 15 new species of cuckoo bees hidden in North American museum collections and in an ancient thesis.

Like their avian counterparts, cuckoo bees lay their eggs in the nests of other bees, usually solitary dwellers.

When the cuckoos hatch they kill off the usurped bees' larva and are raised by the unsuspecting host.

Researchers say that this type of behaviour is common in bees and up to 15% of species are cuckoos.

While there are many different genera, or types, of cuckoo bees, all the new discoveries relate to one genus, Epeolus. The new findings bring to 43 the total of Epeolus species in North America.

These cuckoos are said to look more like wasps than other bees, with a smoother, less fuzzy look. This is because they don't have the body hairs that other bees u=read more

New beetle species named after Leonardo DiCaprio

A new species of water beetle found clinging to a sandstone rock in a fast-flowing stream that leads to a waterfall in Malaysian Borneo has been named after the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

The tiny black insect, which has a partially retractable head and slightly protruding eyes, was named after the star of Titanic and The Revenant for his environmental activism.

Citizen scientists who took part in an expedition to Borneo’s Maliau Basin recovered the first known specimen of Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi from a shallow stream about a kilometre above sea level. The 3mm-long beetle was rather battered and lacked a front leg and antenna.

The field trip to Borneo was arranged by scientists at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and a Dutch firm, Taxon Expeditions, that trains paying members of the public in the scientific techniques used to capture, study and identify new species. The beetle was named after DiCaprio after the citizen scientists and =READ MORE

New species in the North Sea

Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute and the Universities of Oldenburg and Potsdam, Germany have confirmed the existence of a new cryptic amphipod species in the North Sea. For the first time for the description of a new species, they used a level of mitogenomic information, which was normally applied in other areas of genetics. The discovery of Epimeria frankei was now published in the journal Scientific Reports. In the future, this level of molecular information could revolutionise biodiversity research.

Reports of "new species" in the North Sea, usually relate to animals or algae that were newly introduced by human activities. =READ MORE

New climate 'feedback loop' discovered in freshwater lakes

Methane emissions from lakes in the northern hemisphere could almost double over the next 50 years because of a novel "feedback loop" say scientists.

Climate change is boosting the proportion of cattail plants growing in and around freshwater lakes they say.

But when debris from these reed beds falls in the water it triggers a major increase in the amount of methane produced.

The gas is at least 25 times more warming than CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Freshwater lakes play an important but relatively unrecognised role in the global carbon cycle, contributing around 16% of the Earth's natural emissions of methane - compared to just 1% from all the world's oceans.

The gas is produced by microbes in the sediment at the bottom of lakes who consume organic matter that falls into the water from plants and trees that live close to the shore.

The amount of methane generated according to this study, varies considerably depending on what enters the lake.

The research team carried out tests in the laboratory that compared the impact of =READ MORE

In Cities, Wildlife Evolves Astonishingly Fast

Most naturalists turn up their noses at cities, regarding them as anti-nature—sterile wastelands of concrete and steel. But evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen, author of Darwin Comes to Town, takes the opposite view: Urban environments are in fact “powerhouses of evolution,” where animals as diverse as blackbirds and bobcats are adapting to their new surroundings, with startling results.

Speaking from his home in Leiden, Netherlands, Schilthuizen explains =READ MORE

New Species of Vanilla Discovered in Costa Rica

A new species of Vanilla flower was discovered in Costa Rica in the country of Corredores in the South Zone of Costa Rica, close to the Panama frontier; the flower was named Vanilla-karen-chistianae in honor of Costa Rican scientist Christiana Figueres Olsen.

The discovery was made by Patricia Lehmann Calderon, student of Management of Natural Resources of the UNED who worked alongside investigator Adam P. Karremans of the Lankester Botanical Garden.

“Vanilla karen-christianae was found in a region of the country that has no protected areas and very little original forest cover. The unexpected discovery highlights the importance of continued and sustainable conservation efforts across all life zones and ecoregions, underlining the importance of the public sector in biodiversity research and protection. The new species belongs to subgenus Xanata, which includes all the fragrant Vanilla species used in commerce. Vanilla karen-christianae is easily distinguished from all other Central American species by the combination of very narrow leaves, with a recurved apex, the green-and-white flowers and the appendages on the lip, a feature found otherwise only in the closely related Vanilla helleri, Vanilla insignis and Vanilla odorata”, states the report by Researchgate.net.

Vanilla is a genre of 110 species and it belongs to the family Orchidaceae that encompasses over 30 thousand species worldwide.

New plants from Western Ghats

In just four months, nine new plants have been discovered in the Western Ghats, according to papers published in journals. Apart from the discoveries of the world’s smallest land fern and two shrubs of the rattlepod family reported in The Hindu, six species including two balsams, two shrubs belonging to the mint family (Lamiaceae), a herb of the coffee family (Rubiaceae) and 10-cm-tall Sonerila, a flowering plant commonly found in the tropics, have been discovered.

Their stunning pink blooms make some Sonerilas well known as ornamental plants. Sonerila lateritica however, is a rock-loving wild herb that researcher S. Resmi at the University of Calicut and her colleagues discovered in the laterite hills of Ponkunnu in Kerala's Kozhikkode district. Only two populations of the plant were found in the area, write the researchers in their study in the journal Phytotaxa.=read more

New tick species found in US

 An exotic tick variety has been discovered in New Jersey, the state confirmed.

"It has the potential to infect multiple North American wildlife species," the New Jersey Department of Agriculture said in a news release last week.

An East Asian tick (Haemaphsalis longicornis) was found on a farm in Hunterdon County, the first known instance of the tick in the U.S.

The tick also was found on a white-tail deer at the Watchung Reservation, 40 miles away from the farm where it was originally spotted, agriculture officials reported on Wednesday.

Local officials and the Center for Vector Biology at Rutgers University first identified the critter on the Hunterdon County farm, and the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, IA, confirmed the finding in November 2017.

The pest wasn’t carrying any diseases, the health officials said.

Despite steps taken to eradicate the tick from the property and animals around it, surveillance by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory revealed that the tick "successfully overwintered in =read more

New frog species takes historical name of Goa

In the highland plateaus of the Western Ghats parts of Goa, scientists have identified a new species of frog called Fejervarya goemchi.

The new species is named after the historical name of the state of Goa where the species is discovered, Nirmal Kulkarni, a senior herpetologist told The Hindu on Thursday.

Come monsoons and many of these are large-sized terrestrial frogs sit next to water bodies making calls to attract females for mating and breeding. Although most of these frogs are terrestrial, they need water bodies to continue for survival.=read more

New species among rare treasure trove of fossils found in California

Finding fossils can be a fact of life for construction crews excavating in California. That's what happened when crews broke ground to begin the new Bay Area Calaveras Dam in 2013. They just didn't expect to find so many.

The existing 93-year-old Calaveras Dam stands only about a thousand feet from the Calaveras Fault, a proximity that prompted earthquake safety concerns.

The dam impounds the Calaveras Reservoir, which holds 40% of the area's water supply capacity. It's the largest Bay Area reservoir, said Betsy Lauppe Rhodes, regional communications manager for the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System.

With 2.7 million Bay Area customers relying on its water, the stability of the dam is critical. After careful study, a decision was made to rebuild the dam completely next to its existing location, Rhodes said in an email.

The dam's excavation required moving 10 million cubic yards of rock and soil. During initial project planning, shell fossils were noticed at the site, she said.=read more

New Species of Bat Discovered in Gorongosa

Maputo — A species of bat, previously unknown to science, has been discovered in Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, in the central province of Sofala.

A study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society describes three new species of bats from southern Africa. One, with the scientific name Rhinolophus Gorongosae, is believed to occur only in Gorongosa National Park, and possibly on nearby Mount Mecula.

It is a horseshoe bat, but found to be genetically and morphologically distinct from neighbouring horseshoe bat populations. Weighing just five grams it is the smallest horseshoe bat known in Africa.

The other two new species are also found in Mozambique. Rhinolophus Rhodesiae has been confirmed to be a distinct species found in northern Mozambique and elsewhere in southern Africa.

The third species, Rhinolophus lobatus, is not exactly new. It was once believed to be identical to the west African bat R. Landeri, but further research has revealed that it is a separate species unique to Mozambique and South Africa. It now replaces R. Landeri on the species list for Mozambique.

One of the co-authors of the study, Jen Guyton, who is a Princeton =READ MORE

New species among rare treasure trove of fossils found in California

Finding fossils can be a fact of life for construction crews excavating in California. That's what happened when crews broke ground to begin the new Bay Area Calaveras Dam in 2013. They just didn't expect to find so many.

The existing 93-year-old Calaveras Dam stands only about a thousand feet from the Calaveras Fault, a proximity that prompted earthquake safety concerns.

The dam impounds the Calaveras Reservoir, which holds 40% of the area's water supply capacity. It's the largest Bay Area reservoir, said Betsy Lauppe Rhodes, regional communications manager for the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System.

With 2.7 million Bay Area customers relying on its water, the stability of the dam is critical. After careful study, a decision was made to rebuild the dam completely next to its existing location, Rhodes said in an email.=read more

New Species of ‘Exploding Ant’ Discovered in Borneo

When confronted by an enemy, Southeast Asian “exploding ants” do exactly what their name implies: they explode. Ignored for decades, researchers have completed a detailed survey of these enigmatic ants, discovering over a dozen species that fit into this group, including one that’s completely new to science.

Ants are capable of amazing prosocial behaviors, such as creating bridges and life rafts out of their bodies, collecting wounded comrades from the battlefield, and even administering medical care. But in terms of self-sacrifice, there’s nothing quite like the tree-dwelling “exploding ants” of Southeast Asia, who are willing to give up their lives to protect their colony.

Confronted by a threat, such as a predatory insect, a minor worker can deliberately rupture its abdominal wall. The ant doesn’t literally explode in a Michael Bay sort of way, but the desperate measure causes a sticky and toxic liquid to pour out from its bloated glands—a noxious substance that’s capable of killing the intruder. It’s a final fatal act for our exploding protagonist, but the ant is truly going out in a blaze of glory; by deploying this form of chemical warfare, the ant does its part to protect the colony.=read more

Amphibian fossil in Ishikawa recognized as new species

• 

HAKUSAN, Ishikawa Prefecture--A fossilized amphibian found here has been identified as a new species of the Albanerpetontidae family, which was wiped out an estimated 3 million years ago, city officials said.

The fossil was discovered in the Kuwajima fossil cliff, a central government-designated “natural monument” datable to the early Cretaceous period around 130 million years ago.

It is the first albanerpetontid fossil found in Japan and represents the earliest record of the extinct amphibian family in Asia, officials of the Hakusan board of education said April 6.

The fossil was studied by Susan Evans, a professor of vertebrate morphology and paleontology with University College London, and Ryoko Matsumoto, a curator with the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History.

The scientists said albanerpetontids are land-living amphibians that are believed to have emerged between 160 million and 65 million years ago and gone extinct 3 million years ago.

Resembling the salamander, they have been found in fossil form in North America, Europe and Uzbekistan.

A CT scan of the specimen found in the Kuwajima fossil cliff showed 43 pieces of bones, including those of the head, the spine and a hind limb. The fossil was attributed to an albanerpetontid based on the shape of the lower jaw and other features.

The fossilized animal has an estimated body length of 60 millimeters,-read more

New Bird of Paradise Species Has Smooth Dance Moves

It's hard to find a more superb bird than the superb bird of paradise.

Males have an elaborate courtship ritual, during which they spread out their black cape until only a bright blue breast plate and blue eyes are visible in an all-absorbing blackness.

Then he puts on a dance, moving around a female in semi-circle motions until she's wooed.

Until recently, scientists thought the superb bird was unique among the 43 birds of paradise that comprise the family Paradisaeidae. But in a new paper in the journal PeerJ , ornithologist Edwin Scholes and photographer Tim Laman detail a new addition: the Vogelkop superb bird-of-paradise.=read more

New ancestor of modern sea turtles found in Alabama

A sea turtle discovered in Alabama is a new species from the Late Cretaceous epoch, according to a study published April 18, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Drew Gentry from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama, USA, and colleagues.

Modern day sea turtles were previously thought to have had a single ancestor of the of the Peritresius clade during the Late Cretaceous epoch, from about 100 to 66 million years ago. This ancestral species, Peritresius ornatus, lived exclusively in North America, but few Peritresius fossils from this epoch had been found in what is now the southeastern U.S., an area known for producing large numbers of Late Cretaceous marine turtle fossils. In this study, the research team analyzed sea turtle fossils collected from marine sediments in Alabama and Mississippi, dating from about 83 to 66 million years ago.

The researchers identified some of the Alabama fossils as representing a new Peritresius species, which they named =read more

27.5-Million-Year-Old Species Of Baleen Whale Found In New Zealand Is One Of Oldest

A 27.5 million-year-old fossil that was discovered on the South Island of New Zealand is now described as one of the oldest known species of baleen whales.

Toipahautea Waitaki

Researchers named the new species Toipahautea waitaki, which roughly translates to "baleen whale from the Waitaki region". The fossil had been found in January 1988 about 30 years ago, but researchers were only able to conduct more in-depth study recently.

The creature lived during the Oligocene epoch about 33.9 million to 23 million years ago when New Zealand was an island archipelago surrounded by shallow waters.

Ewan Fordyce, from the University of Otago's Department of Geology, and colleagues who studied the fossil said that the whale is a relatively old one, hailing back nearly halfway back to the age of the dinosaurs.

Relatively Small Compared With Their Modern Kin

The species was small when compared with modern baleen whales. It measured just 19 feet in length, which is just about half the size of a modern minke whale.

"People look at the fossil record and think the early history of many animals is filled with giants, but not for whales. It's only in recent geological times that whales have achieved really large sizes," said Fordyce.

Baleen Whales

Modern baleen whales are filter-feeding marine giants and include many of the largest known cetaceans such as the humpback, bowhead, and minke whales.=

: Deep sea Java expedition uncovers bizarre new species

A deep sea expedition to unexplored depths of the Indian Ocean has unveiled a dozen monstrous new species, including a crab with blood-red eyes and a foot long cockroach.

The freakish crustaceans are among 800 species identified during the first such scientific expedition to the southern coast of West Java, Indonesia.=read more

Lost species of Ganges river shark thought to be extinct is seen for the first time in a decade…in a Mumbai FISH MARKET

One of the world's rarest species of shark has turned up in a fish market in Mumbai - after not being seen since 2006.  

A university student browsing the market saw the critically endangered Ganges river shark and took pictures of the cadaver before it was gutted, chopped up and sold to the highest bidder.

Classified as critically endangered and believed to be extinct, this animal could even be the last of this elusive species.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5637769/Lost-mysterious-species-Ganges-shark-seen-decade-Mumbai-FISH-MARKET.html#ixzz5DP3kIrj7
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New sea anemone species resembling tempura found

— A Japanese research team has discovered a new species of sea anemone that resembles shrimp tempura when the creature puts out its tentacles from inside the sea sponge it lives with.

The new species was named Tempuractis rinkai, or tempura isoginchaku (anemone) in Japanese, Takato Izumi, a University of Tokyo doctoral student, and other members of the team said.

The members found many tiny anemones living inside homosclerophorid sponges they collected at a rocky shore near the university’s Misaki Marine Biological Station in Kanagawa Prefecture.

Because of their small size — 3 to 4 millimeters in length per adult specimen — and other distinguishing bodily features as well as their peculiar symbiotic ecology with the sponges, the researchers concluded that the anemones are a new species assigned to family Edwardsiidae, they said in an article published by the Japanese journal Zoological Science.=read more

New specimen of one of world's rarest turtle species found in Vietnam

) -- Turtle experts said they have identified a fourth specimen of the Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei), one of the world's largest known freshwater turtle species, also one of the world's rarest, in Vietnam's Hanoi capital, local media reported on Saturday.

The Hanoi-based Asian Turtle Program of Indo-Myanmar Conservation (ATP/IMC), a Britain-based conservation charity, said they have identified the fourth specimen of the Yangtze giant softshell turtle in Xuan Khanh Lake in Hanoi's outskirts, daily newspaper Vietnam News reported.

ATP/IMC researchers and an ecologist at Washington State University matched environmental DNA collected from water samples from the lake to known samples from the species, and then confirmed the presence of at least one giant turtle living in the lake.

The finding helps to raise the number of these turtles living around the world to four and =read more