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Natural History: Scientists from the Natural History Museum describe and name nearly 200 new species in 2024

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21 December 2024 
By James Hamilton

Scientists at the Natural History Museum have had another bumper year joining teams around the world to identify and describe species of animals, plants and minerals new to science. The list this year totals 190 new discoveries found on Earth, from towering dinosaurs to tiny amphipods, discovered in all manner of environments from the deep sea to a living room in south Wales!

Dr Tim Littlewood, Director of Science at the Museum, says, “In order to fix our broken planet, we need to keep learning about how life evolves and how vital its diversity is in keeping nature healthy. Naming new species helps us do just that.  

“This wonderfully varied list exemplifies the foundations of NHM science to unlock the past and protect the future. They can open doors to finding nature-positive solutions to the planetary emergency and inform policy and conservation efforts to protect the biodiversity on our planet.” 

Officially joining the list in June this year, was a vegetarian piranha, or pacu, named Myloplus sauron due to its resemblance to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Eye of Sauron, and is found in the Xingu River in Brazil. Since a US-Brazilian project began to document the freshwater biodiversity in this region, the building of the notorious Belo Monte dam is now believed to pose a risk to species endemic to the area and not yet known to science.  
 
Dr Rupert Collins, a Senior Curator of Fishes at the Museum, who helped describe the fish in collaboration with local scientists, explains, “Potentially one of the reasons that these dam projects in tropical rivers are given the go ahead is because species diversity and endemism is often underestimated. Basically we don’t fully know what lives in these places, and how unique these species are.

“But continued scientific work in the region has revealed that there’s probably upwards of 70 endemic fish species found in the Xingu River, and more continue to be named.” 

Rupert was also involved with the description of three new species of candiru catfish, some of which have been known to swim up the genitals of unsuspecting swimmers.   

Fascinating animal behaviour continues in one of the 11 new species of moths, from a genus called Hemiceratoides found in Madagascar, known to drink the tears of sleeping birds.

Another of these moths was named and described having been identified by a budding young scientist, Daisy, when she noticed an unusual creature fluttering around her living room in Wales.

Highlighting the vital role of community science in building knowledge of the natural world, Daisy sent the specimen to Museum experts who proceeded to identify it as new to science and, surprisingly, as native to central Guyana.

Dr Sandra Knapp, Botanist at the Museum, explains, “Every specimen in our collection has a narrative or story attached to it and having a name allows you to tell that story. This storytelling sits at the very heart of our mission to create advocates for the planet – how can you speak up for the planet without an understanding of what it is you’re trying to protect.”

Eponymy, a name that comes from a person or place, featured heavily in this year’s list with a fossilised dung, or coprolite, named Alococopros milnei after AA Milne in recognition of Winnie the Pooh. Of the four new snakes named this year, one was named Anguiculus dicaprioi, or DiCaprio’s Himalayan snake, after actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio.

Many extinct animals also made the list with a new dinosaur from the Isle of Wight, now known as Comptonatus chasei, named for fossil hunter, Nick Chase. The specimen is the most complete dinosaur fossil found in the UK in over a century.

At the other end of the country from the Isle of Skye, researchers also named a new species of pterosaur, Ceoptera evansae. Further afield, NHM scientists described a sauropodomorph dinosaur from Zimbabwe and a stegosaur from China.

Our world is changing fast. Climate change and biodiversity loss are just some of the manifestations which threaten critical ecosystems. We need the knowledge and understanding that emerge from scientific discovery to address these problems and we need to ensure these learnings are shared.
The data used to formally describe these discoveries will be uploaded to NHM’s Data Portal, meaning scientists the world over can assess species distribution and work together to form conservation action plans.

Since 2015, the Museum has digitised 5.9 million specimens. The digital collection has seen 47 billion records downloaded, over 980,000 download events and over 4,200 scientific papers cite the Museum’s collections. The new species were included in the 864 papers published by NHM scientists in peer-reviewed scientific journals on topics ranging from food security to the origins of the Solar System.
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As part of our mission to transform the science of natural history, we are focusing our research on providing solutions from and for nature. Of the nine themes which fall under this broader direction, Evolution of Life, Resourcing the Green Economy, Community Science, and Biodiversity Change and Genomics have all contributed to the new species list.

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