From stick insects the size of branches to the cutest squirrels your eyes have ever seen,
we count 10 amazing animal species that were recently discovered.
10 - Foot-long Stick Insect • In 2014, two biologists were shocked when
they came across a stick insect big enough to look like a tree branch.
• Dr Joachim Bresseel and Dr. Jerome Constant were working in the jungles of Vietnam when
they made the discovery of two new species of ‘Phasmatodea’, the order of insects
that are called stick insects.
The full length of this gangly guy can reach a crazy 32 centimetres long, the second longest
species ever discovered.
• The longest insect currently lives in Borneo in Indonesia and grows up to 36 centimetres.
9 – Tully Monster • In 2016, scientists finally figured out
what this bizarre looking creature is.
• Known locally in Illinois as the ‘Tully Monster’, this strange sea-dweller has perplexed
scientists since the discovery of its fossilised remains in 1958.
The mouth of the creature is extended away from the body, with a strange jaw and teeth
appearing at the end of its’ snout.
After extensive investigation, scientists have decided the 307 million year old Tullimostrum
Gregarium, was most likely a vertebrate.
• I’m not exactly complaining that this fish with its hammerhead eyes and weird claw
is no longer in our waterways. 8 – Ruby-Eyed Pit Viper
• Just in case there weren’t enough snakes in the world already, a new species of viper
has been discovered.
• It’s pretty succinctly called the ‘Ruby-eyed Pit Viper’, and it was found just outside
Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
It prefers to live amongst evergreen forest, and has been frequently found loitering around
water sources like waterfalls and swimming pools.
It’s a threatened species, due to the rapidly increasing destruction of their habitats – and
also because some locals like to eat them and make snake wine out of them.
• Call me old fashioned but I prefer my wine to be viper-free.
7 – Texan Minnow • Due to some sloppy scientific documenting
in the 1800’s, this little fish has recently been rediscovered in Texas.
• A scientist called Charles Frederic Girard once detailed his apparent discovery of a
fish called Notropis Amabilis in 1856, but it was commonly believed that Girard was sometimes
careless with his details and often described the same fish twice.
So it came as a bit of a surprise when 100 years later, Dr. Kevin Conway recently found
the West Texas Shiner does in fact exist – it just looks a lot like a regular Texas Shiner.
• They might look identical but Conway assures us they are completely separate species.
6 – Flapjack Octopus • This little guy might actually be the
cutest thing ever discovered in the ocean.
• Everyone’s calling it a flapjack octopus – or octopus adorabilis on account of its
big puppy-dog eyes.
You can find him scooting about in the deep sea at around 1,500 feet below the surface.
Although it looks like he’s made of pudding, he actually has about eight legs, which arch
out like an umbrella to propel his precious little body over the ocean floor.
• A specimen at the Monterary Bay Aquarium Research Institute that laid eggs will hopefully
hatch some teen tiny baby octopi in the next few years.
5 - Shape-shifting frog • A unique amphibian has been discovered
in Ecuador unlike any other frog known to date.
• During a visit to Andean Cloud Forest, Katherine Krynak and her husband Tim picked
up a frog they described as having spines on its’ body.
They put it in a cup and were surprised to find a very different looking smooth frog
in the same cup the next day.
It turns out the frog has the ability to shape shift depending on its’ environment.
• The discovery is the first to document a frog that can mutate its’ own structure
on demand.
4 - Francis’ woolly horseshoe bat • Deep in the caves of Borneo, scientists
recently came across this curious funny looking bat.
• Its leafy-looking semi-circle nose is the reason it got the name ‘Francis’ Woolly
Horseshoe Bat’.
It is also a dedication to Dr. Charles M. Francis who found a similar specimen in 1983.
The strange nostrils are apparently used to increase the precision of their echolocation
calls when searching for food.
• There’s just something so chill about the expression of this bat’s crazy floppy
face.
3 – Ninja Lantern-shark • As if sharks needed to be any more terrifying,
then comes the discovery of the dark and mysterious Ninja Lanternshark.
• It lives around 1000 feet below the surface off the coast of Central America and is so
stealthy it can barely be seen before it attacks.
It has a mostly black body with shimmering internal organs designed to attract mates,
and confuse overhead predators.
• The scientific name of the ninja lantershark is ‘Etmopterus benchleyi’ named after
shark conservation-activist and author of the novel JAWS, Peter Benchley.
2 - Smallest Snail • Back to Borneo, where apparently new species
are just waiting to be discovered, is the hometown of the smallest snail in the world.
• Discovered in 2015 by a group of scientists from the Netherlands, this snail is the smallest
ever recorded with a diameter of just 0.7mm wide.
The team discovered 47 other new species of snails, a handful of which can only be found
above an altitude of 13,400 feet.
• The discovery of this tiny guy beats the previous record for smallest snail, which
was held by a species native to Quangxi in China.
1 – Japanese Flying Squirrel • Okay, so this insanely adorable squirrel
might have been around for a long while, but the Internet has only just discovered it.
• They can only be found in Hokkaido, Japan, making the adorable tree-dwellers a common
mascot for retail outlets in the area.
• If you look for them, you can find them flying from tree to tree in Japan, gnawing
on little leaves and just generally being the most adorable little guys ever.