10. The Carnivorous Olinguito
The newly discovered olinguito, found in the cloud forests of South America, is the first new mammal species to be identified in years.
If you think it’s hard to tell a chimpanzee from a bonobo, try distinguishing the new, carnivorous olinguito from all other olinguitos—tree-dwelling mammals of the Amazon cloud forest related to common raccoons. So closely does the reddish-brown animal with its deceptively cuddly appearance and its decidedly un-cuddly claws resemble its already identified cousins, that the preserved samples of the animal’s pelts which were long stored in U.S. museums were consistently mislabeled as common olinguitos. The Smithsonian Institution even reports that some of the animals may have been kept in American zoos in the 1960s, raising suspicion only because they never seemed to mate—at least not successfully—with others of their ostensible kind. But in 2013, the Smithsonian’s curator of mammals announced both anatomical and genetic evidence that conclusively carved out a new species. Not only does this earn the animals an entry in the taxonomy books, it may at last get the captive ones a cage with the right kind of mate. Happy trails you nocturnal imps, you.
Post Merge: April 19, 2014, 12:17:56 AM
9. Giant Amazon Freshwater Arapaima
A visitor looks at an Arapaima Gigas, a fish from the Amazon rivers known as Pirarucu, at Sao Paulo's Aquarium, on Jan. 10, 2007.
For every animal family that has hundreds of species, there are others that have only a few—or even just one. That was the case with the sleek, silvery, 7. ft. (2.1 m) Amazon fish known as the araipama, a favorite source of protein for local fishermen. In the middle of the 19th century, taxonomists thought they had identified four species, but by the 1860s, the differences among them were seen as trivial enough that they were collapsed back into a single one. Modern-day biologist Donald Stewart of the State University of New York looked more closely at specimens of the fish as well as at the old research and decided that nope, the first guess—four species—was correct. And in 2013, he identified a fifth one, physically distinguished from the others by only a few subtle features, including slightly different coloration and an elongated sinus cavity. The formal designation of the new species is less important than the problems it potentially poses. Araipama are now being raised and farmed, and farmed fish have a tendency to escape and become wild fish, sometimes crowding out native species they wouldn’t normally encounter. Stewart recommends caution in any more farming of arapaima until their species and behaviors can be better understood.
Post Merge: April 19, 2014, 12:18:55 AM
8. The Cape Melville Shade Skink
A new shade skink in the rugged Cape Melville mountain range, northeastern Australia's Cape York Peninsula.
Australia was generous with the exotic animals this year, offering up the wonderfully named Cape Melville Shade Skink, a gold-colored, insect-eating lizard, which represents one more skink species in a family that already includes 1,500 others. But the Cape Melville entry is special, not only for its fetching color, but for its exuberance. Mot skinks stay close to the ground, hunting their buggy prey among the leaf litter. The Cape Melville skink leaps about on rock-and-moss fields. That’s usually a good way to get yourself eaten, but this species must know what it’s doing: it’s been around for about half a billion years.
