A toothy leech, a jumping cockroach, a glow-in-the-dark mushroom and a fruit-eating lizard are in the top ten of the year’s new species, which have been selected by the International Institute for Species Exploration of the University of Arizona and a committee of taxonomists from around the world.
Nominations for the new species were received through a website or through institute staff. The first place was obtaineda leech found in Peruless than two inches in length thathe sports gigantic teeth. Hence it was baptized asTyrannobdella rex, that is to say “king leech tyrant”. It was found attached to the nasal mucosa of a human being.
Follow himan iron oxide-consuming bacterium, discovered in a rust deposit on the Titanic, for which it was namedHalomonas titanicaeby a team of scientists from the University of Dalhousie (Canada) and the University of Seville (Spain).
Another member of the ranking isa bat shaped like an omelettethat lives in the waters, which were partially or totally affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In addition, last year a cockroach with unusual morphology was found in the Silvermine Nature Reserve, in southern Africa , since it has legs that allow it to jump. Before its discovery, it was only known of the existence ofjumping cockroachesin the late Jurassic.
Also included in the lista new species of antelope, alizarda monitor that is nearly six feet long and is bright blue in color, andGlomeremus orchidophilus, a cricket that is distinguished by being the only pollinator of the orchid ‘cadetii’, a rare and endangered species in the Mascarene Archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
