♪ (opening music) ♪
(narrator) What's in a name?
(man's voice) [Miconia formicuria]
[Miconia alitisima]
(narrator) In 2014, Academy scientists described and named
221 new species of life.
From ants to plants and everything in between,
researchers traveled far and wide, even into their own backyards,
in search of unknown lifeforms;
missing pieces in the intricate jigsaw puzzle of life on Earth.
(Chrissy Piotrowski) To effectively understand and hopefully sustain
the biodiversity that exists on our planet,
we really need to understand and know what its inhabitants are.
(Vanessa Knutson) Without knowing what species live in a region,
then we can't really say a lot and base that on hard facts or science.
So it's important for us to really understand what's out there
so that we can protect it.
If we take a place like the Philippines, for example,
where there's a lot of pressure on marine resources there,
it's important for us to be able to evaluate
which parts should be protected.
(narrator) Vanessa and Chrissy each had publications this year
of new discovered marine animals in the Philippines.
For Vanessa, three new nudibranchs.
And for Chrissy, two new polychaete worms.
(Chrissy) Not very many people know what a polychaete worm is.
They play critical environmental ecological roles
and they're incredibly diverse in their body form.
The scale worm is called Iphione malifera
and the small red and yellow thread-like worm
is called Myrianida puladilaw, which we formed by putting
the Tagalog colors for red and yellow together.
We thought it might somehow become a poster child
for the incredible and beautiful and untapped biodiversity
that there is yet to be studied in the Philippine coral reefs.
The scale worm is spelled and sounds quite a bit
like a mobile device that is put out by Apple.
(narrator) A worm named after an iPhone?
(Chrissy) The authors are pretty free to name it whatever they want
with some rules that apply.
The first part of the name,
which is the genus that that species falls within.
That genus is followed by the species name, which you select.
It's traditional to either name a species after some physical characteristic
of the new species.
Or after a person, maybe a colleague or a scientist
who's come before you and worked on the group.
Sometimes a supporter.
Sometimes even a member of your family.
(Francisco Hito Garcia) I am a big fan of fantasy novels
and I Iike Greek mythology and Roman mythology.
So I use a lot of names from Greek or Roman Gods
or fantasy books like Tolkien and many many more.
I also like Star Wars so I also named something after Star Wars characters.
Some of my species last year was named Tetramorium jedi.
Right now I have another one called Tetramorium obiwan.
I'm sure they might get attention, but that's not my intention.
It's just I work with a genus with 600 names that are already there,
so it's sometimes very hard to find a useful name.
(narrator) And this new species of sengi?
(man's voice) Macroscelides micus.
(narrator) Micus means small.
(man's voice) And these are the smallest.
(narrator) And this new species is named after the donors
who made an expedition possible.
And this new tardigrade species
raised money for forest conservation in Ethiopia
with its name becoming a wedding present for this couple.
And these names will likely follow the specimens forever.
(Francisco ) When it's published, the name becomes valid.
(narrator) A name is just the beginning of discovering how these creatures live
and their ecological roles.
So cheers to the 221 new names of new relatives in our family tree.
(man's voice) [Tetramorium inquidu]
[Tetramorium freya]