New species discovered off Australian coast

A new species of venomous sea snake mysteriously covered head to tail in spiny scales has been discovered in treacherous seas off northern Australia, according to a new study.

Though some other sea snakes have spiky scales on their bellies, "no other [known] sea snake has this curious feature," study leader Kanishka Ukuwela, an ecologist at the University of Adelaide, said by email.

Normally snakes have smooth scales, but each of the newly named Hydrophis donaldi's scales has a spiny projection, he said.

Scientists cruising shallow seagrass beds in the Gulf of Carpentaria (map) recently captured nine of the rough-scaled reptiles, National Geographic reported.

"The minute the first one landed on the deck, I knew we had something special," study co-author Bryan Fry of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, said by email. "It was quite unlike any of the sea snakes I have seen."

Each of the specimens was found on the rocky seafloor, a habitat that could explain the new species' uniquely strong scales, Fry noted.

Overall, though, "we don't know why this interesting feature evolved in this species, or what they are used for," study leader Ukuwela said.

The new Hydrophis—literally "water serpent"—likely eluded notice for two reasons. The species is apparently rare, and it lives in coastal habitats largely avoided by fishers, Ukuwela said. Many Australian sea snake species live in the open ocean and are often accidentally caught in prawn trawls. (See snake pictures.)

Little is known about the yellowish brown reptile, other than that it gives birth to live young and, like nearly all live-bearing sea snakes, is "venomous and potentially dangerous to humans," according to the study, published February 21 in the journal Zootaxa.

Furthermore, venom is just one obstacle to unraveling the new species' mysteries, the University of Queensland's Fry noted.

"Field observations are impossible, because the water is very murky and filled with lots of very large bull sharks and saltwater crocodiles, in addition to [highly poisonous] box jellyfish," he said.

"If we tried to dive there, our life expectancy would be measured in minutes. The only question is which animal would kill us.

"My money is on the bull sharks."

New species of albino spider found in WA

A new species of trapdoor spider has been found near Northam in Western Australia, identified as a member of the Idiopidae family.

Nicknamed the albino trapdoor spider, it was spotted by Grass Valley resident John Cornish on his back veranda in July.

The white-headed, black and brown-legged spider about the size of a 50-cent piece was captured in a jar and handed to the Northam office of the Department of Environment and Conservation.

Read more here.

Papua New Guinea reveals 1000+ new species

A blue-hued Monitor lizard - Varanus Macraei. 

A fanged frog, a dazzling blue monitor lizard, a blind snake and a round-headed dolphin are among more than 1000 new species that have been recently found in Papua New Guinea, the environment group WWF has announced.

Scientists made the astounding discoveries, which included a river shark and dozens of butterflies, at a rate of two a week from 1998 to 2008, WWF said in a report on the island's natural habitat.

"This report shows that New Guinea's forests and rivers are among the richest and most biodiverse in the world," WWF Western Melanesia program representative Neil Stronach said.

PNG's rainforests are the third-biggest in the world after the Amazon and the Congo, and, while the island covers just 0.5 per cent of Earth's land mass, it contains up to 8 per cent of the world's species, according to WWF.

The 1060 species confirmed by scientists as new discoveries between 1998 and 2008 are believed to have only scratched the surface of PNG's dazzling ecosystems.

The round-headed dolphin - Orcaella Heinsohni.

"Such is the extent of New Guinea's biodiversity that new discoveries are commonplace even today," WWF said in its report, titled Final Frontier: Newly Discovered Species of New Guinea.

One of the most notable finds documented in the WWF report was a round-headed and snub-finned dolphin, which swims in protected, shallow coastal waters near rivers and creek mouths.

Discovered in 2005 in PNG, it was the first new dolphin species recorded anywhere in the world in three decades, and is now known to exist in Australia, WWF said.

Another of the 12 mammals found over the decade was an anteater named in honour of British naturalist David Attenborough, Sir David's long-beaked echidna or, scientifically, Zaglossus attenboroughi.

One of the 134 frogs discovered was dubbed Litoria sauroni because its striking red and black spotted eyes reminded scientists of the evil character Sauron in the Lord of the Rings movies.

A large green tree frog - Litoria dux.

Another new frog was notable because of its size -- just 1cm in length -- and one had vampire-like fangs.
Nine snail species were among the 580 new invertebrates discovered.

Among the other new invertebrates was a brightly coloured apricot crayfish, part of the yabby family, which was 9-12cm long.

Discoveries of new fish totalled 71, with a kaleidoscope of colours, including one in the coral reefs of Milne Bay that thrilled scientists with its dazzling blue hue.

WWF said the most extraordinary freshwater discovery was a 2.5m river shark found in PNG that has since also been located in northern Australia.

Of the 43 reptiles discovered, one could claim to be the most innocuous snake in the world. It was just 12-14cm long, could not bite, had no venom and had scales over its eyes so it could not see.

A blue-eyed spotted Cuscus - Spilocuscus Wilsoni.

But WWF said the excitement of all the new discoveries had been tempered by the fact that,
as in the Amazon and Borneo rainforests, human actions were destroying Papua New Guinea's natural habitat at an "alarming rate".

New Guinea is the largest tropical island on Earth and is divided between the countries of Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the East and Indonesia in the West. It contains the third largest tract of rainforest in the world after the Amazon and the Congo. The island covers less than 0.5 per cent of the Earth’s landmass but shelters 6 to 8 per cent of the world’s species. An estimated two-thirds of these species are unique to New Guinea.

“If you look at New Guinea in terms of biological diversity, it is much more like a continent than an island,” says Dr. Stronach. “Scientists found an average of two new species each week from 1998 – 2008 – something nearly unheard of in this day and age,” he says.

 “Despite its remote location, New Guinea’s natural habitats are being lost at an alarming rate. The island’s forests are facing serious threats including logging, mining, wildlife trade and conversion to agriculture, particularly oil palm,” said Dr Susanne Schmitt, New Guinea Programme Manager at WWF-UK.  “As a region with high rates of poverty, it is absolutely essential that New Guinea’s precious reefs, rainforests, and wetlands are not plundered but managed sustainably for future generations”.

In PNG between 1972 and 2002, independent studies have shown that 24 per cent of rainforests were cleared or degraded through logging or subsistence agriculture. Increasingly, demand for palm oil is also destroying many of New Guinea’s most valuable rainforests. Large forest areas on the island (and across the region) are being cleared for oil palm monocultures, destroying critical habitat for many endangered species.

The destruction of these forests, which are usually cleared by burning, releases huge amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and accelerates climate change. However, many oil palm producers in New Guinea and around the world are pursing certification through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO. Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) guarantees that social and environmental safeguards have been met during production. And importantly, CSPO also assures that high conservation value forests haven’t been cleared.

Philippines lizard has distinctive trait

There is a phrase that is frequently expressed in the less couth parts of town that conveys a speaker's sense of unparalleled elation: "I'm as happy as a dog with two dicks."

Well, we didn't say it was a nice phrase, but it comes to mind as we contemplate the discovery of a new species of lizard in the Philippines that boasts not one, but two penises.

We did actually blog about this last year, but there seems to be a bit more information floating around about this scaly discovery.

We can't vouch for the lizard's happiness or otherwise, but the hefty reptile - reputedly as big as a human (the lizard that is, not his appendage) - had, until two years ago, gone unknown in the West by living high in the trees.

The giant lizard, Varanus bitatawa, is related to the Komodo dragon but differs in a few ways: scale pattern, size, vegetarian diet. And its penises. Did we mention the two penises already?

Double-ended penises are common among snakes and lizards. The Komodo dragon has one (or two). Same with rattlesnakes and other reptiles. But one way scientists were able to differentiate V. bitatawa from the related Gray’s monitor lizard was by its hemipenis, the shape of which is unique to each species, National Geographic reports.

New discovery - TWO types of Asia's clouded leopard

By sleuthing through genes found in feline pelts more than a century old, scientists have discovered that the newest species of big cat known to science, the mysterious Sunda clouded leopard, actually comes in two different types.

These big cats apparently owe their origins to cataclysmic super-volcano eruptions and rising sea levels, researchers found.

The clouded leopards — the most elusive of all the big cats — make up the group known as genus Neofelis. Seen from the foothills of the Himalayas through Southeast Asia into China, they are most notable for patches on their fur said to be shaped like clouds and for the largest canine fangs relative to their bodies of any living cat. (Despite their name, clouded leopards are not actually a kind of leopard, but are completely separate from the genus that includes lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars.)

"They're sometimes even called modern-day saber-toothed cats," researcher Andreas Wilting, a wildlife biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, told LiveScience from Borneo.
Comparisons between the clouded leopards of mainland Asia and the Sunda Islands of Southeast Asia, which include Borneo, Java, Sumatra and Bali, revealed the Sunda clouded leopard was genetically distinct, making it the newest species of big cat known to science. 

"The canines on the Sunda clouded leopard are even longer than seen on the mainland clouded leopard, and they have more dots in their cloud-shaped markings than mainland ones," Wilting said. "They are as genetically distinct from mainland clouded leopards as leopards are distinct from lions."

Although scientists wanted to learn more about the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi), "they are hard to find in the forest," Wilting said. As such, he and his colleagues investigated DNA they gleaned from clouded leopard pelts, skulls, claws and bones gathered on the islands and kept in museums worldwide for up to more than a century, as well as excrement collected more recently by researchers in the field.

"Working with ancient DNA from museum specimens that were often highly degraded was a major challenge," Wilting said.

The scientists' genetic analysis — combined with investigation of available bones — revealed the Sunda clouded leopard is actually divided into two subspecies — Neofelis diardi diardi, indigenous to Sumatra, and Neofelis diardi borneensis, exclusive to Borneo.

"Although we suspected that Sunda clouded leopards on Borneo and Sumatra have likely been geographically separated since the last ice age, it was not known whether this long isolation had caused them to split up into separate subspecies," Wilting said.

There were considerable genetic differences between the groups. There were also physical distinctions, often subtle in nature. A comparison of coat color patterns conducted by researcher Andrew Kitchener from National Museums Scotland saw only small deviations between the groups, which could be due to how the highly similar tropical habitats on the islands demanded similar camouflage strategies. The skulls also showed minor variations, according to researcher Per Christiansen of the University of Aalborg in Denmark — for instance, the Sumatra cat has a slightly wider nasal aperture relative to muzzle width than the Borneo one.

Both subspecies of Sunda clouded leopard are classified as endangered, since their numbers are low just like all other big cats. In order to save the Sunda clouded leopard, it is paramount to protect large areas of forest in Borneo and Sumatra or at least to manage them sustainably, Wilting said. The researchers are working closely with wildlife officials in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo to investigate and conserve the cats.

New species of jellyfish discovered

A famous marine biologist has made scientific history by discovering a new jellyfish - sitting under a Hobart dock in Tasmania.

Lisa-ann Gershwin was searching the waters below Macquarie Wharf for new forms of jellyfish and found a new variety by late morning! The Californian-born biologist is the world's foremost expert in the classification and identification of jellyfish.

During her 18-year career Dr Gershwin has discovered about 170 new species, 35 of which have been found in Tasmanian waters, and she is still in awe of every jellyfish she comes across.

New species of giant monitor lizard discovered

A giant species of monitor lizard that lives in trees has been discovered in the forests of the Northern Philippines, scientists have revealed.

The 6ft 6in-long brightly-coloured lizard is a secretive, fruit-eating species which was found in the forests of the heavily populated and largely deforested Luzon Island.

The discovery of the monitor lizard was described as an 'unprecedented surprise' by scientists.

The species (Varanus bitatawa) is restricted to the forests of the central and northern Sierra Madre range, where biologists have conducted relatively few surveys of reptiles and amphibians.

Read more: 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1264010/New-species-giant-lizard-discovered-Philippine- forests.html#ixzz0knj1x2io

'Micro Kermit' discovered in Borneo

Meet the smallest frog on the block - a tiny pea-sized amphibian discovered recently in deepest, darkest Borneo.
The new discovery - the smallest found in Asia, Africa or Europe - has been named Microhyla nepenthicola after the plant on which it lives, according to taxonomy magazine Zootaxa.
The pea-sized frog had originally been mis-identified in museums, according to Dr Indraneil Das of the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. He stated: 'Scientists presumably thought they were juveniles of other species, but it turns out they are adults of this newly-discovered micro species."
The micro-frogs were found on the edge of a road in the Kubah National Park.
Scientists managed to track down the tiny critter by their call - a series of 'harsh rasping notes' that began at sunset.
The discovery was part of a global effort undertaken by the Conservation International and International Union for Conservation of Nature's Amphibian Specialist Group to 'rediscover' 100 lost amphibians.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/from-the-land-of-the-lost-meet-micro-kermit-20100826-13tje.html