Every year, biologists brave the world’s deserts, jungles and industrial ecosystems looking for new species.
And what wonderful things they find. It turns out that the real world is totally like the internet: If you look hard enough, you can find just about anything. This year, scientists found caffeine-less coffee plants, tiny seahorses and a 23-inch long bug that looks like a branch, not to mention a strange white slug no one had ever described that was found in a Welsh garden.
Below, you’ll find the top 10 species found and described in 2008, according to The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University.
At the top of the page you see the world’s tiniest seahorse, Satomi’s Pygmy Seahorse, aka Hippocampus satomiae. Found in Indonesian waters, it’s the reigning champ of lilliputian seahorses, floating around at half an inch tall.
Deep Blue Chromis aka Chromis abyssus
The deep reefs of the Pacific Ocean are home to a variety of strange creatures that are just beginning to be described. Named in honor of the BBC program that funded the trip on which it was discovered, this small blue fish was found in Palau, which is hundreds of miles from anywhere.
Ghost Slug aka Selenochlamys ysbryda This member of the family Trigonochlamydidae was found in a “domestic garden in Canton,” a town in Wales. It’s nocturnal and creepy looking.
Phobaeticus chaniThat’s not a stick, it’s the world’s longest insect, measuring in at 22.3 inches total and with a body length of 14 inches. You can find it in Borneo, although we’d rather not.
Charrier Coffee aka Coffea charrierianaIf there’s one thing we’ve been waiting for from the plant community, it’s a caffeine-less coffee plant. Oh, wait, no we haven’t! Caffeine is the coffee plant’s raison d’etre in our book. Biologists say, however, that this Cameroonian freak could be useful in coffee breeding programs to develop a naturally decaf bean. Which is good news, if you’re into that weak stuff.
Tahina spectabilisLooking for a new metaphor for your new magical realist novel set in Madagascar? The Tahina palm is the answer to your dreams: The plant literally flowers itself to death, going out in a blaze of flowers and fruit. It lives only in one tiny corner of Madagascar and is unrelated to any of the 170 other palm varieties on the island.
Tahina spectabilisLooking for a new metaphor for your new magical realist novel set in Madagascar? The Tahina palm is the answer to your dreams: The plant literally flowers itself to death, going out in a blaze of flowers and fruit. It lives only in one tiny corner of Madagascar and is unrelated to any of the 170 other palm varieties on the island.
Barbados Threadsnake aka Leptotyphlops carlaeThe world’s tiniest, quarter-wrapping snake made the rounds of the internet last year and made the ASU’s species list this year. It’s only found in Barbados.
Mother Fish aka Materpiscis attenboroughiThe mother fish is only known from the fossil above, which shows the animal giving birth 370 million years ago. It’s the oldest-known vertebrate to have birthed offspring live.
Opisthostoma vermiculumThis strange Malaysian gastropod has a shell that defies the standard laws of shell twisting. It coils along four separate axes, not three like most of its relatives. It’s no tiny seahorse, but you can’t hold that against it.
Microbacterium hatanonis
Bacteria really can live just about anywhere on else from hot volcanic vents to Antarctic ice. But they are also adapting to the new environments that humans create. Case in point, Japanese scientists found that this bacterial species lives inside hairspray. It still doesn’t have a common name, but seeing as most bacteria live in communities, we suggest AquaNet.
