Exerpt from original article by:

MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer
Thursday, April 10, 2008
(04-10) 05:43 PDT BANGKOK, Thailand (AP)

A frog has been found in a remote part of Indonesia that has no lungs and breathes through its skin, a discovery that researchers said Thursday could provide insight into what drives evolution in certain species.
[...]
“These are about the most ancient and bizarre frogs you can get on the planet,” Bickford said of the brown amphibian with bulging eyes and a tendency to flatten itself as it glides across the water.

“They are like a squished version of Jabba the Hutt,” he said, referring to the character from Star Wars. “They are flat and have eyes that float above the water. They have skin flaps coming off their arms and legs.”

Along with the lungless frog, Bickford said his team discovered two new lizard species and four other species of frogs during their two-month trip.

Read full article at The San Francisco Chronicle online.

From BBC news:

Despite its name, the creature, along with the 15 other known species of elephant shrew, is not actually related to shrews.

Dr Rathbun told the BBC News website: “Elephant shrews are only found in Africa. They were originally described as shrews because they superficially resembled shrews in Europe and in America.”

In fact, the creature is more closely related to a group of African mammals, which includes elephants, sea cows, aardvarks and hyraxes, having shared a common ancestor with them about 100 million years ago.

“This is why they are also known as sengis,” explained Dr Rathbun.

From Yahoo news:

The newcomer, dubbed Rhynchocyon udzungwensis, stands head and shoulders above his cousins, weighing in at a massive 700 grammes (1.5 pounds), about 25 percent larger than any other known sengi.

He was identified by scientists Galen Rathbun of the California Academy of Sciences and Francesco Rovero of the Museum of Natural Sciences in Trento, Italy.

Their discovery is published in the February issue of the British-based Journal of Zoology.

“This is one of the most exciting discoveries of my career,” Rathbun, a 30-year veteran of sengi-watching, said in a press release.

“It is the first new species of giant elephant-shrew to be discovered in more than 126 years. From the moment I first lifted one of the animals into our photography tent, I knew it must be a new species — not just because of its distinct colouring, but because it was so heavy!”

Find the full BBC article here.

Read the rest of the Yahoo article here.

(thank you for reminding me, Ashley. I’ve been busy lately, and hadn’t gotten around to posting this one.)

From an original article
posted at Physorg.com

“When the ant Cephalotes atratus is infected with a parasitic nematode, its normally black abdomen turns red, resembling the many red berries in the tropical forest canopy. According to researchers, this is a strategy concocted by nematodes to entice birds to eat the normally unpalatable ant and spread the parasite in their droppings. (Steve Yanoviak/University of Arkansas)

Read the full article at Physorg.com

The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 16, 2008;
4:29 PM LONDON

– Eeek! Imagine a rodent that weighed a ton and was as big as a bull. Uruguayan scientists say they have uncovered fossil evidence of the biggest species of rodent ever found, one that scurried across wooded areas of South America about 4 million years ago, when the continent was not connected to North America.
A herbivore, the beast may have been a contemporary, and possibly prey, of saber-toothed cats _ a prehistoric version of Tom and Jerry.

For those afraid of rodents, forget hopping on a chair. Its huge skull, more than 20 inches long, suggested a beast more than eight feet long and weighing between 1,700 and 3,000 pounds….

Read the full article at the Washington Post online.

(AP) — A Dutch scientist thinks he has discovered a new species of wild pig nearly twice the size of other pigs in Brazil’s Amazon region.
At four feet long and 90 pounds, the pig is the latest in a string of new species that Marc van Roosmalen reported to have found since 1996. His findings were published in the Oct. 29 edition of the German scientific journal Bonner Zoologische Beitrage.

Van Roosmalen, said his discovery of the peccary - a kind of wild pig he dubbed Pecari maximus - points out the need to protect the region as a habitat for wild species.

He said he made his discovery by accident in 2000, while searching for a new monkey species.

[...]

The region where Roosmalen discovered the new peccary and other species - mostly primates - lies along a logging frontier around Nova Aripuana, where the number of sawmills has grown from two in 2002 to 14 today.

[...]

DNA analysis showed the animal diverged from the most closely related species, Pecari tajacu, or collared peccary, about 1 million to 1.2 million years ago, Van Roosmalen said.

Find the full article at Physorg.com

The following is copied directly from EurekAlert.org:

10-26-2007
Contact: Michael W. Neff
American Society for Horticultural Science

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico — Researchers at New Mexico State University recently discovered the world’s hottest chile pepper. Bhut Jolokia, a variety of chile pepper originating in Assam, India, has earned Guiness World Records’ recognition as the world’s hottest chile pepper by blasting past the previous champion Red Savina. In replicated tests of Scoville heat units (SHUs), Bhut Jolokia reached one million SHUs, almost double the SHUs of Red Savina, which measured a mere 577,000.

Dr. Paul Bosland, Director of the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University’s Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences collected seeds of Bhut Jolokia while visiting India in 2001. Bosland grew Bhut Jolokia plants under insect-proof cages for three years to produce enough seed to complete the required field tests. “The name Bhut Jolokia translates as ‘ghost chile,’” Bosland said, “I think it’s because the chile is so hot, you give up the ghost when you eat it!” Bosland added that the intense heat concentration of Bhut Jolokia could have significant impact on the food industry as an economical seasoning in packaged foods.

——

The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS HortScience electronic journal web site: http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/42/2/222

Founded in 1903, the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) is the largest organization dedicated to advancing all facets of horticultural research, education, and application. Society website - ashs.org

Thursday, 22 May 2003
Excerpt from original article
by Danny Kingsley
ABC Science Online

Four complete new kingdoms of life have been discovered by American researchers in the high alpine environment of Colorado, rewriting the textbooks on microbes.

The new microbe kingdoms were found in barren, boulder-filled tundra slopes west of Boulder, Colorado, delegates of the a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Washington DC heard this week.

Dr Allen Meyer, a medical practioner working with Professor Steven Schmidt in the environmental, population and organismic biology department of the University of Colorado in Boulder, made the discovery as part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s ‘Microbial Observatories’ program.

“It is very interesting and kind of surprising to discover four kingdoms in the same locality,” Dr Don Colgan, an evolutionary biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney, commented to ABC Science Online.

Until relatively recently, ‘kingdom’ was the highest level of classification in the scientific taxonomic system that places all forms of life into hierarchical categories. Kingdoms are made up of divisions (or phyla), which themselves break down again into classes, then orders, families, genus and finally, species.

Scientists in the 18th century originally classified the kingdoms of life into two basic groups: plants and animals. In 1977, Dr Carl Woese turned biology on its head when he discovered the ‘third kingdom of life’: archaea micro-organisms that live near volcanic vents on the seafloor without oxygen and in conditions thought to be reminiscent of Earth’s earliest environment. He has since proposed that these three kingdoms be placed in a higher classification, called domains.

Two advances in science have helped uncover even more new kingdoms of life, Colgan said: the increase in the analytical power of computers and the discovery of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) process, which has allowed scientists to look at DNA sequences in intricate detail. A debt must also be paid to adventurers who go to extreme places and collect samples, he added.

Scientists now believe there are many more kingdoms, including fungi and a number of types of single-celled organisms. The number of kingdoms was estimated to be about 30 before the University of Colorado discovery. [more...]

Much MUCH more information is included in the Original Article at the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) website, News in Science.com.

Excerpt from
original article
by Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) -

Using new DNA sequencing techniques, the researchers have identified as many as 37,000 different kinds of bacteria huddled near two hydrothermal vents on an underwater volcano off the Oregon coast.

“Many of these bacteria had never been reported before,” said Julie Huber of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, whose study appears in the journal Science.

[...]

Her research is part of an international effort to create a census of marine microbes, which make up as much as 90 percent of the total ocean biomass by weight.

Read the full, detailed article at Reuters.com.

Then it MUST be 2 newly discovered DINOSAURS!

First:
–Excerpt from original
article by: Scott Norris
for National Geographic News
October 3, 2007

“A massive fossil skull found in southern Utah represents a new species of duck-billed dinosaur, researchers say.

The unusually well-preserved skull shows the duckbill was a muscular vegetarian, with hundreds of teeth and bulging jaws.

“It could have eaten whatever [vegetation] was in its way,” said lead researcher Terry Gates, a paleontologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

[...]

Gates and colleague Scott Sampson studied the skull, and concluded that it is a new species of hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur.

The species was given the scientific name Gryposaurus monumentensis in honor of the national monument where the skull was unearthed.”

Read full article at National Geographic.

News in Science article here.

_______________

Second:
Excerpt from article at
LiveScience.com

” A strange, long-necked waddling dinosaur with massive arms and probably enormous claws has been discovered.

It walked only on its hind legs like the carnivorous dinosaurs from which it evolved, but Suzhousaurus megatherioides, meaning “giant sloth-like reptile from Suzhou,” was an herbivore, says researcher Daqing Li of the Third Geology and Mineral Resources Exploration Academy of Gansu Province in northwestern China, where the fossil specimen was found.

The creature belongs to a group of dinosaurs called therizinosaurs, characterized by long necks capped by small heads, massive arms and claws, and flaring ribs and hips that made their bodies very wide. [...]“

Read the entire (very detailed) article at LiveScience.com.

October 4, 2007 From BBC News

A previously unknown indigenous group living in isolation has been found deep in Peru’s Amazon jungle, a team of ecologists has said. The ecologists spotted the 21 Indians near the Brazilian border as they flew overhead looking for illegal loggers.

The group was photographed and filmed from the air on the banks of the Las Piedras River in Peru’s south-eastern Amazon region.

A government official who was on the flight said there were three palm huts on the river bank.

“We’ve found five other sites with this kind of shelter along the same river,” Ricardo Hon told Associated Press news agency.

__________

Get more info from the original article at BBC News.–While you’re there, make a point to check out the links to other articles about Peruvian Indians in the news. The links can be found at the top of the right-hand column.

Find an INCREDIBLE resource for information on Native Amazonian tribes (including maps, photos*, videos, illustrations of different ceremonies- like the ‘Poison Frog Ceremony’- and MUCH more!) at Amazon-Indians.org, Matses.info, and Amazonz.info.

*please be aware that there is ‘National Geographic’ style nudity in the photos at these sites. These are native Natives.

Photo credit: Amazon-Indians.org, with many thanks! The Indians pictured are of the Matis tribe, of theYavarí Valley in Brazil. They bear many cultural and linguistic similarities to other tribes in Peru. You can find out more about that at the site.

The tropical forests of Vietnam are throwing open their secrets, as scientists discover 11 new species including two types of butterfly and a snake.

The species, which also include five orchids and three other plants, are exclusive to the remote area in the centre of the country known as the “Green Corridor”, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) charity said.

A further 10 kinds of plant, including four orchids, are still being examined but are thought to be new species.

The WWF said the animals and plants, found in forests in the Annamites Mountains of Thua Thien Hue province where several mammal species were discovered in the 1990s, could represent the “tip of the iceberg” of new species.

Find the original article at the Daily Mail.

Exerpt from
original article
by Blake de Pastino
from National Geographic.com
September 18, 2007

This unusual species of flying fox was recently discovered in the Philippines not long after it was deemed not to exist.

Jake Esselstyn, a biologist with the University of Kansas, was among a team of researchers that found the animal, a type of fruit bat, last year while surveying forest life on the island of Mindoro.

“When we first arrived on Mindoro, a local resident that we hired as a guide described the bat to me in great detail, and he asked me what it was called,” Esselstyn said.

“I politely told him that there was no such bat. I was wrong.”

Several days into the survey, the scientists accidentally captured a creature in a net that fit the guide’s description: a large flying fox with bright orange fur and distinctive white stripes across its brow and jaw.

In his own defense, the scientist pointed out that the species’ closest known relative lives some 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) away on an island in Indonesia.

“It makes you wonder if there are other related species on islands between,” he said.

Read the full article at National Geographic!

Excerpt from article
originally posted at
mongabay.com
August 13, 2007

“Scientists have discovered a previously unknown species of bird in dense bamboo thickets in the Peruvian Amazon.

Writing in the journal The Auk, authors led by Daniel F. Lane of the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science describe the new species of twistwing (Cnipodectes superrufus).

The scientists say the brownish-red colored bird [...] remained unknown until the present due to its poorly known, and largely inaccessible habitat: thickets of thorny bamboo (Guadua weberbaueri) in southeastern Peru.

Relatively little is known about the species. It apparently eats small arthropods (mostly insects) and has a call similar to that of the Sulfur-bellied Tyrant-Manakin (Neopelma sulphureiventer).”

Read the full article at Mongabay.com

Daniel F. Lane, Grace P. Servat, Thomas Valqui H.A, and Frank R. Lambert (2007). A DISTINCTIVE NEW SPECIES OF TYRANT FLYCATCHER (PASSERIFORMES: TYRANNIDAE: CNIPODECTES) FROM SOUTHEASTERN PERU. THE AUK Volume 124, Issue 3 (July 2007)

By Charles Q. Choi,
Special to LiveScience
posted: 07 August 2007
03:32 pm ET

In a once-lost forest in Africa, six animal species new to science have been discovered, members of a two-month expedition now reveal, including a bat, a rodent, two shrews and two frogs.

“If we can find six new species in such a short period, it makes you wonder what else is out there,” said Wildlife Conservation Society researcher Andrew Plumptre.

Read the entire article at LiveScience.com

“Science Daily — A new poisonous frog was recently discovered in a remote mountainous region in Colombia by a team of young scientists supported by the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP). The new frog, which is almost two centimetres in length, was given the name the “golden frog of Supatá.”"

Rad the entire article at ScienceDaily.com

Excerpt from an
article at KJCT8News

” High up on the Mesa, in the Grand Valley town of Collbran, a tiny four legged wonder sticks close to its mothers side. It is the latest addition to the ranch owned by Larry and Laura Amos. But this is a once-in-a-million, genetically impossible occurrence of a mule giving birth.

The mother of this beauty, is named Kate. She is a mule. Mules are a hybrid of two species, a female horse and a male donkey. Breeding the two results in a species with 63 chromosomes. A horse has 64, a donkey has 62. A mule can’t reproduce because you need an even number of chromosomes to divide into pairs.

This little wonder came into the world in late April to the shock of the Amos family. Doting mother Kate has no idea what she has accomplished.”

Read more of this article here.

Read the original story at Mules and More.

Thanks to flamencohorse for the scoop!

November 2006
From an article at
Science in Africa:

“South African Marine biologist Professor Charles Griffith from the University of Cape Town has chalked up the discovery of over 100 new species in his career. These include a new genus of freshwater shrimp, Mathamelita, named after his son Matthew, and a new family of seaslugs, Lemindidae named by his wife after their daughter Melinda - indeed a real family affair! His most recent find is larger meat though: a new giant species of spiny lobster, Palinurus barbarae (Decapoda Palinuridae) from Walters Shoals on the Madagascar Ridge.

Only three new lobster species have been identified in the past 12 years, worldwide. These beauties weigh in at up to 4kgs [*] and were discovered accidentally, when a Spanish fishing vessel working in the Indian Ocean docked in Durban and applied for a permit to export their lobster catch to Europe. …”  continued…

*some sites have reported the lobsters weigh “1kg, or 4lbs”- which is incorrect anyway (1kg=2.2lbs approx), but the Census of Marine Life website lists them as 4kg, so I am trusting their data.

May 19, 2006

A host of record-breaking discoveries and revelations that stretch the extreme frontiers of marine knowledge were achieved by the Census of Marine Life in 2006, highlights of which were released today.

They include life adapted to brutal conditions around 407°C fluids spewing from a seafloor vent (the hottest ever discovered), a mighty microbe 1 cm in diameter, mysterious 1.8 kg (4 lb) lobsters off the Madagascar coast, a US school of fish the size of Manhattan Island, and more unfamiliar than familiar species turned up beneath 700 meters of Antarctic ice.

Below are some pics and brief descriptions of a few of the discoveries. Visit Census of Marine Life’s website to find pictures and more pictures of creatures!

Find an excellent article with lots of info at EurekAlert.
Read another article at Times Online.

___________________________________

“A “Jurassic” shrimp, Neoglyphea neocaledonica, believed extinct for 50 million years, found in the Coral Sea. Credit: B. Richer de Forges ©2006″

___________________________________

“Antarctic Jellyfish: this species was filmed in Antarctic waters that have been kept in darkness for thousands of years by thick ice cover. …”

___________________________________

“ A new species of squid, Promachoteuthis sloani, found along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Credit: MAR-ECO/R. Young”

___________________________________

John Roach
for National Geographic News
November 19, 2003

The number of rorqual whale species swimming in the world’s oceans has jumped to eight from six, according to new research by a team of Japanese scientists published in tomorrow’s issue of the science journal Nature. The research shows that rorquals commonly referred to as Bryde’s whales actually represent three distinct species.

Rorqual whales (Balaenoptera) do not have teeth. Instead they have baleen, a horny substance found in rows of plates along their upper jaws, and they are thus classified as baleen whales. They range from about 26 to 92 feet (8 to 28 meters) in length and weigh upwards of 220,000 pounds (100,000 kilograms).

Rorquals are found throughout the world’s oceans and are distinguished by their long bodies and pleated throats. Their most familiar species are the common minke whale (B. acutorostrata) and the blue whale (B. musculus). Read the full article at National Geographic.com– find out why the new species were only recently discovered, and the difficulties in studying this group of whales.

The AFP report can be found  at DiscoveryNews.com

February 29, 2000
By Alex Kirby
environment correspondent
BBC News Online

Zoologists say they have made a “dramatic” discovery in the Peruvian Andes - a hitherto unknown genus of mammal.

The discovery of the animal, a tree rat the size of a domestic cat, was made by Dr Louise Emmons, a researcher with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

She found it while climbing in the Vilcabamba mountains near the ruins of the Inca city of Macchu Picchu, an area which had not been researched before.

Dr Emmons was about 700 metres up the mountain when she came across the rat, which had just been killed by an Andean weasel. Read the entire article at BBC News.

[Note: This discovery was probably made in the 1990s, but since it wasn't made public until 2000, I've made the executive decision to include it here. I chose to do this mainly because there are several major discoveries made in the 1990s (ie: the Truong Son muntjac, the saola, the Laotian striped rabbit, and the Idaho Crossbill to name a few) which, by my own definition of this blog, can't be included here. So, this one is a new millennium species, if only just..]