Popa langur, a monkey that is highly endangered in Myanmar, is one of the newly described species.
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the museum may have been closed to the public for the longest time since World War II, but researchers are still struggling behind the scenes, according to a news release published Tuesday.
These hundreds of new species were described in 2020 by researchers working with samples from the museum’s large collection.
A natricine snake was one of nine new snake species described in 2020.
Abhijit Das
To describe a new species means to gather information about the shape and structure of an organism, to record the research in a paper and to review it through the scientific community, said Ken Norris, head of life sciences at the Natural History Museum, told CNN.
“You’re asking if the new specimen is sufficiently different from anything else previously seen as a new species,” Norris said. “So you describe it for the first time.”
Among the newly described species of this year is the Popa Iangur (Trachypithecus popa), a monkey that lives on the slopes of an extinct volcano in Myanmar.
Actias keralana is a moth found in India.
Nässig et al. 2020
It is already considered critically endangered, with 200-260 individuals living in the wild, but experts hope its naming will help preserve the monkey, according to the museum.
“The basics of naming things, or recognizing that they are distinguishable, are rapidly increasing their importance in conservation,” Norris said. “Once you know, it immediately becomes a priority for conservation, while it has not yet been.”
A dozen new reptiles and amphibians have been described this year, including a crested lizard from Borneo, two new species of frogs and nine new snakes.
The museum collection also contains a single specimen of a new species of lungless worm salamander (Oedipina ecuatoriana), an amphibian that breathes through its skin, collected more than a century ago.
An armored snail, or Armilimax pauljamisoni, is shown here.
Kimmig et al. 2020
Beetles are the largest number on the list, with 170 new species named, followed by bees and wasps with 70 new species.
One of them – Bombus tibeticus – lives on the Tibetan plateau in Mongolia, 5 640 meters above sea level, making it one of the species of bumblebees.
There are also 51 species of snails, nine species of moths, six new species of millipedes, nine flatworms and one butterfly described in 2020.
The impression of an artist depicts the wombat-like marsupial Mukupirna nambensis.
Peter Schouten
Scientists have also described 122 new fossil species, including Armilimax pauljamisoni, which looks like an armored snail, and a giant fossil-like wombat-like marsupial named Mukupirna nambensis.
The giant marsupial lived in present-day Australia 25 million years ago and would have grown to a size similar to a black bear.
Researchers have described ten new species of minerals, of which there are about 6,000 species in the world.
And Norris expects no decline in the number of newly described species in the coming years.
“At the moment, we think 20% of life has been described as a basic guess in a shape or form,” he said, and many more lives have yet to be described.