WUHAN, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- Scientists have identified new species of insects and plants in central China's Shennongjia National Nature Reserve, according to a report released on Thursday.
Seven kinds of flies and three types of dragonflies have been discovered in Shennongjia over the past five years, together with Zhengyia shennongensis, a new genus and species of the nettle family.
The discoveries are part of a newly completed research project on Shennongjia natural resources. The research, which took five years, has resulted in a comprehensive report on the area's geography, animals, plants, microbes and human residents.
The discoveries have offered further evidence that Shennongjia is one of the most biologically rich places on Earth, said Deng Tao, researcher at Kunming Institute of Botany under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who was also the first botanist to describe Zhengyia.
Deng and his colleagues first found Zhengyia in a deep valley in northwestern Shennongjia in 2011. After studying samples of the plant for two years he discovered that it was a new genus, with roots dating back as far as 33 million years ago.
Deng and his team named the plant after the renowned Chinese botanist Wu Zhengyi. Their findings were published in "Taxon," a leading journal on biodiversity, in 2013.
However, Zhengyia, a "living fossil" in Deng's words, is critically endangered, with READ MORE-http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-11/05/c_134787764.htm
A new species of whirligig beetle is the first to be described in the United States since 1991. Grey Gustafson, a PhD student at the University of New Mexico, and Dr. Robert Sites, an entomologist at the University of Missouri's Enns Entomology Museum, describe the new species in an article appearing in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America.
In September we reported that scientists had found the world’s tiniest snail, measuring 0.88 millimeters (0.03 inches) across, in southern China. But apparently snail size records are fleeting. Now researchers have discovered and described an even smaller snail in northeastern Borneo, measuring 0.5 to 0.6 mm (0.02 inches). That’s the approximate thickness of five human hairs placed next to one another. The scientists named it Acmella nana—nanusbeing Latin for dwarf).
An international team of scientists has unearthed a significant haul of reptile and amphibian fossils in Brazil, dating from 278 million years ago when all the continents were joined together.
