Post by Mary on Dec 20, 2006 11:31:09 GMT -5
IN the second remarkable biodiversity find this year, researchers announced yesterday they had identified at least 52 new species of animals and plants on the island of Borneo.
The new discovery included 30 unique species of fish, two new species of tree frog, 16 species of ginger, three tree species and a large-leafed species of plant seen nowhere else in the world, the wildlife group WWF announced.
Many of the species were found in the so-called Heart of Borneo, a thickly forested mountainous region covering about 220,000 sq km in the centre of the island, which is divided between Brunei,
Indonesia and Malaysia.
The finds include the world's second-smallest vertebrate, a tiny species of fish that measures less than 1cm in length and thrives in the island's highly acidic blackwater peat swamps. There is also a catfish with protruding teeth "and an adhesive belly which allows it to literally stick to rocks" and maintain its position facing into the current of Indonesia's turbulent Kapuas River system.
Six species of Siamese fighting fish were also discovered, with a range of unique colours and markings that distinguish them from close relatives.
While those species were spotted in Indonesian waters, the 8.8mm-long paedocypris micromegethes was discovered in Malaysia's slow-flowing blackwater streams and peat swamp forests shielded from light.
The creature, which gets its name from the Greek words for children and small in size, is tinier than all other vertebrae species except for its slightly more minuscule cousin, a 7.9mm-long fish found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
In February, scientists said they had had found a "Garden of Eden" in the Foja Mountains, on the island of New Guinea, where they recorded dozens of new species of butterflies, frogs, palms and rhododendrons.
WWF said many more species waited to be discovered in Borneo, but it expressed deep concern about the loss of equatorial rainforest, which is being cleared for rubber, oil palm and pulp production.
"The more we look, the more we find," said Stuart Chapman, international coordinator for WWF's Heart of Borneo program.
"These discoveries reaffirm Borneo's position as one of the most important centres of biodiversity in the world." The discoveries bring the total number of species newly identified on the island to more than 400 since 1996.
"The remote and inaccessible forests in the Heart of Borneo are one of the world's final frontiers for science, and many new species continue to be discovered here," Mr Chapman said. Jane Smart, who heads the World Conservation Union's species program, said the discovery of 52 species within a year in Borneo was a "realistic" number given that scientists guess there are about 15 million species on Earth.
www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20953833-953,00.html
The new discovery included 30 unique species of fish, two new species of tree frog, 16 species of ginger, three tree species and a large-leafed species of plant seen nowhere else in the world, the wildlife group WWF announced.
Many of the species were found in the so-called Heart of Borneo, a thickly forested mountainous region covering about 220,000 sq km in the centre of the island, which is divided between Brunei,
Indonesia and Malaysia.
The finds include the world's second-smallest vertebrate, a tiny species of fish that measures less than 1cm in length and thrives in the island's highly acidic blackwater peat swamps. There is also a catfish with protruding teeth "and an adhesive belly which allows it to literally stick to rocks" and maintain its position facing into the current of Indonesia's turbulent Kapuas River system.
Six species of Siamese fighting fish were also discovered, with a range of unique colours and markings that distinguish them from close relatives.
While those species were spotted in Indonesian waters, the 8.8mm-long paedocypris micromegethes was discovered in Malaysia's slow-flowing blackwater streams and peat swamp forests shielded from light.
The creature, which gets its name from the Greek words for children and small in size, is tinier than all other vertebrae species except for its slightly more minuscule cousin, a 7.9mm-long fish found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
In February, scientists said they had had found a "Garden of Eden" in the Foja Mountains, on the island of New Guinea, where they recorded dozens of new species of butterflies, frogs, palms and rhododendrons.
WWF said many more species waited to be discovered in Borneo, but it expressed deep concern about the loss of equatorial rainforest, which is being cleared for rubber, oil palm and pulp production.
"The more we look, the more we find," said Stuart Chapman, international coordinator for WWF's Heart of Borneo program.
"These discoveries reaffirm Borneo's position as one of the most important centres of biodiversity in the world." The discoveries bring the total number of species newly identified on the island to more than 400 since 1996.
"The remote and inaccessible forests in the Heart of Borneo are one of the world's final frontiers for science, and many new species continue to be discovered here," Mr Chapman said. Jane Smart, who heads the World Conservation Union's species program, said the discovery of 52 species within a year in Borneo was a "realistic" number given that scientists guess there are about 15 million species on Earth.
www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20953833-953,00.html