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In 2023, nearly 1,000 new species were discovered by scientists from London’s Natural History Museum and the California Academy of Sciences, proving that Earth is still home to many undiscovered wonders.
The discoveries were made during a year that marks the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Endangered Species Act, which provides protections for endangered plants and animals and has helped save hundreds of species, said Scott Sampson, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences.
“Another million species remain at risk due to human-induced activities such as habitat destruction, climate change and pollution,” Sampson said in a statement. “We need to document Earth’s living diversity so we can work to protect it, and the California Academy of Sciences is honored to join this critical global effort.”
The diverse list of 968 new species includes previously unknown dinosaurs and extinct creatures, beetles, moths, sea slugs, geckos, fish, frogs, spiders, plants, fungi, worms and a legless skink.
Pest control wasps
Scientists will probably remember 2023 as the year of the wasp. Of the 815 new species described this year by researchers at the Natural History Museum, 619 were different species of pollinating, predatory and parasitic wasps.
The extraordinary number of discoveries was stimulated by the work of Dr. John Noyes and Christer Hansson, scientific staff at the Natural History Museum, who conduct ongoing research on bees, ants and wasps in Costa Rica.
“It is important to continue describing new species because many will have a profound impact on their environment and without knowing what to name them we cannot convey any information about them,” Noyes said.
Some of the new wasp species display a variety of metallic hues, including blue, purple and orange. A fan of “Doctor Who” and a nod to the British television series that celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2023, Noyes named a genus of wasps after the show’s fictional mutant villains, the Daleks and their creator.
And while wasps may seem like a nuisance armed with stings, the insects help control populations of pests that can plague agricultural crops.
“Over the past sixty years, three species have been incredibly important. One in preventing the potential famine of up to 300 million people in Africa, a second in preventing rainforest destruction in Thailand, and another in the collapse of Togo’s economy,” Noyes said.
A legless lizard
A new species of legless lizard was found gliding along the slopes of Serra da Neve, the second highest mountain in Angola. Legless lizards, known as skinks, resemble snakes and hide among leaves on the forest floor to hunt insects and other small prey.
Skinks differ from snakes in that they have external ear openings and movable eyelids, according to the Virginia Zoo.
While most skinks are uniform in color, the newly described Acontias mukwando has a pink ring around its neck.
Serra da Neve offers a unique ecosystem for the unusual plants and animals found only on its isolated peak. The mountain is located on the northern edge of the Namib Desert and has a cool, moist environment.
“Every new species we describe from this mountain — and species like it — is evidence that places like this deserve some kind of conservation consideration,” Academy of Sciences research associate Aaron Bauer said in a statement. “We’re still finding new species on these isolated ‘islands,’ which tells us it’s not too late for protection.”
Enigmatic plants
Scientists from the National Polytechnic Institute in Durango, Mexico, teamed up with researchers from the Academy of Sciences to study a rare succulent plant in the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains.
The plant, which grows from the cliffs, has long been known to the local indigenous community of O’dam. The O’dam people call the plant with bare leaves and stems da’npakal, which in their language means bare, naked or smooth.
Researchers named the succulent Pachyphytum odam to maintain the connection between the plant and the community that lives on the land where it grows.
Meanwhile, scientists have solved a case of mistaken identity for a flowering plant in Costa Rica. For more than 150 years, the plant was thought to belong to a similar but separate species in Mexico.
The newly identified plant, Stenostephanus purpureus, is different from a plant called Stenostephanus silvaticus found in Mexico. The flowers have different colors and the Costa Rican plant lacks a flat petal that is often called a landing site for butterflies and other insects as they collect pollen. Instead, hummingbirds probably pollinated Stenostephanus purpureus.
“I never questioned the identification of the Costa Rican specimens, not until I made a comparison with images of living plants from Mexico,” researcher Ricardo Kriebel of the Academy of Sciences said in a statement. “The differences between the two are subtle when you work with dead, dry specimens from collections.”
A new look at the past
Researchers at the Natural History Museum have identified four new species of extinct birds by studying fossils, including birds that lived during the time of dinosaurs. One of the most intriguing discoveries of the year was Kumimanu fordycei, the largest penguin to ever exist on Earth. The flightless birds lived 60 million years ago and weighed an estimated 330 pounds (150 kilograms).
A previously unknown type of armored dinosaur species was also found on the Isle of Wight. Isle of Wight is known as Dinosaur Island and is considered one of the best places to find dinosaur fossils in the UK.
The ankylosaur, which lived on the island 140 million years ago, was named Vectipelta barretti in honor of Professor Paul Barrett of the Natural History Museum.
“Paul is incredibly influential in our discipline,” Dr. Susannah Maidment, a paleontologist at the museum who has studied the new species, said in a statement. “He is incredibly high-profile and has contributed enormously to the field. But he’s also had an absolutely huge influence on all of our careers, and we want to thank him for that. That’s why we decided to name a small, slow-moving organism with spines after him.”
Researchers also named an ancient fungus after beloved children’s book author and illustrator Beatrix Potter. The 400-million-year-old Potteromyces asteroxylicola, which infects the roots of fossilized plants, is the earliest known disease-causing fungus. In addition to writing the Peter Rabbit books, Potter was an avid mycologist who studied fungi and created detailed images.
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