A most unusual year-end list

What do a toothy toadstool, a vegetarian piranha, and a tiny pipe horse drifting through the Indian Ocean have in common? They are a few of the extraordinary species scientists named and described for the first time in 2024.

Estimating that only one-tenth of all species on earth have been identified, last year researchers at the California Academy of Sciences documented 138 new species including the pygmy pipehorse discovered in South Africa’s choppy reefs. The Natural History Museum in London celebrated the discovery of 190 species, from moths to mollusks. Among them, a Malagasy moth drinks bird tears, while another, Carmenta brachyclado, traveled inadvertently from Guyana to Wales in a photographer’s boot.

Botanists unearthed a ghostly fungus with teeth-like structures in England and also discovered five orchids from Indonesia. There’s an elusive African plant family called Afrothismia confined to continental African forests that survives without photosynthesis.

While the discoveries are thrilling, many species are found on the brink of extinction and put scientists in a race against time to find and protect them – a reminder of the earth’s fragile biodiversity. Within this effort, scientists have just discovered a “supergiant” sea bug species that is served in Vietnamese restaurants. Researchers named it Bathynomus vaderi because it resembles the iconic helmet worn by Darth Vader in “Star Wars.”

ARTICLE: NEW SPECIES DISCOVERIES