Ok, when it said 'new species' I thought of new species... like evolution... but a *new species* to Western Scientists. I keep thinking back on to the fact that animals are evolving every day, so a new species might just be an adaptation of an existing species which then died out because what was being 'selected' for took hold. You know, the whole theory of evolution... Does that make sense?
And, ahhhh, 4 days out of water? Ahhh, aren't these the invasive fish in some of the American waters?
A bright blue dwarf snakehead fish that can wriggle around on land for up to four days at a time and a snub-nosed monkey that sneezes when it rains: Those are just two of 211 new species found over the past five years in the Eastern Himalayas, the World Wildlife Federation reports. The region, which spans central Nepal, Myanmar, and Bhutan, as well as northeastern India and southern Tibet, has seen the discovery of 26 fish, 133 plants, 39 invertebrates, 10 amphibians, one reptile, a bird, and a mammal. The question is, How long will they survive? Researchers say many of these newly found species are under mortal threat—climate change, deforestation, poaching, and pollution have left only 25 percent of the Eastern Himalayas’ original habitats intact. “These discoveries show that there is still a huge amount to learn about the species that share our world,” the WWF-UK’s chief adviser of species, Heather Sohl, tells The Guardian (U.K.). “It is a stark reminder that if we don’t act now to protect these fragile ecosystems, untold natural riches could be lost forever.”
Taken from the October 30, 2015 edition of The Week Magazine.
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