Surprising exotic flies in the backyard: New gnat species from Museum Koenig’s garden

Little did scientists Kai Heller and Björn Rulik expect to discover a new species in Germany’s Alexander Koenig Museum‘s garden upon placing a malaise trap for testing purposes. Not only did an unknown and strikingly coloured gnat get caught, but it turned out to be a species, which showed to have much more in common with its relatives from New Zealand. Their study is published in the open access Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ).

While the genus, which the new dark-winged fungus gnat species belongs to, likely originates from the Australasian region, it was so far represented by only three species in Europe. None of them, however, stands out with the contrasting colouration of the presently announced fourth one.

The new gnat, called Ctenosciara alexanderkoenigi after the German museum’s founder, is described based on a single specimen caught in the framework of the German Barcode of Life Project (GBOL). Over three days, the scientists observed the flying insects getting caught in a malaise trap, placed among the predominantly non-native plants in the Alexander Koenig Museum’s garden. This tent-like structure is designed to catch flying insects. Once they fly into its walls, they get funnelled into a collecting bottle.

Upon noticing the beautiful striking colour of the fly, the two specialists were convinced they had just discovered a new to science species. Most of these flies are bright brownish, and the only other orange European dark-winged fungus gnat – almost uniformly orange. In contrast, the new species stands out with a mixture of reddish, black and yellowish-white hues. Based on the DNA-barcode match with New Zealand specimens, the authors concluded that the species must have arrived from the Australasian region in Europe quite recently.

oo_47399

“It is a rare occurrence, that a species from the opposite end of the world is represented by a single specimen only and it is not yet clear, whether Ctenosciara alexanderkoenigi has a permanent population in Germany or if it was only introduced casually with plants or soil,” they explain. “Probably, the species was recently introduced from the Australasian Region. If it was a permanent member of the European fauna, a striking species like this would likely have been found earlier.”

In conclusion, the scientists note that modern technologies such as the high quality photo documentation, established as a standard by the BOLD project, DNA barcodes assigned with BINs, as well as facilitated by speedy publishing, have largely aided taxonomists to build on the biodiversity knowledge.

“We believe that the rapid description of Ctenosciara alexanderkoenigi, coupled with the BDJ reviewing system, might be a robust and ground-breaking way to accelerate and stabilise taxonomy in the future,” they finish their paper.

###

Original source:

Heller K & Rulik B (2016) Ctenosciara alexanderkoenigi sp. n. (Diptera: Sciaridae), an exotic invader in Germany? Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e6460. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.4.e6460

Black wattle’s new biogeographic distribution threatens flight safety in China

Black wattle, flowering trees also known as the Australian acacia, have been observed to rapidly spread around local airports in Yunnan province, southwestern China. According to the ecologists, this alien species and its extraordinary pace of invasion are to lead to new threats for both flight safety and local biodiversity. The five Chinese scientists, led by Min Liu, PhD student at Yunnan University, have their findings and suggestions for immediate measures published in the open-access journal Neobiota.

The phenomenon was investigated by the ecologists and botanists, affiliated with Yunnan University and Kunming University of Science and Technology, at Kunming’s Changshui International Airport.

The black wattle is listed as being among the ”Top 100 of the world’s worst invasive alien species” by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Native to Australia, the species has been settled across the globe for more than 150 years owing to its multiple uses. However, its distribution and expansion are generally overlooked in China.

It is an evergreen fast growing flowering tree species, which is strongly dependent on sunlight and contributes to nitrogen fixation. This means that due to bacteria in its root system, the tree produces nitrogen compounds that help the plant grow and compete with other plants. Once dead, it would release these compounds to fertilise the soil.

During their investigation, the scientists observed a total seedling spread of 1800 m in 2013, with its peak growth taking place between June and November. Other population features such as number, density, height and ground diameter, also showed that the species had a very high invasion rate.

The authors conclude that black wattle has a strong potential to change the local vegetation structure and increase the risk of bird strikes. It is of urgent need that the situation is further assessed and the potential invasion threat at other airports around China and other parts of the world – evaluated.

“I have never found such a rapid expansion like the one of the black wattle trees at this airport in my career,” said the Head of Bird Strike Prevention Office of Changshui Airport. “These trees grow very fast and provide good shelters for local birds, which eventually increases the probability of bird strikes at our airport. So, they must be controlled.”

###

Original source:

Liu M, Yang M, Song D, Zhang Z, Ou X (2016) Invasive Acacia mearnsii De Wilde in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China: a new biogeographic distribution that Threatens Airport Safety.NeoBiota 29: 53-62. doi: 10.3897/neobiota.29.7230

Over 300 new beetle records for New Brunswick, Canada, in a special issue of ZooKeys

Beetles diversity in New Brunswick, Canada, has elicited the interest of biologists for over a century and continues to do so. In 1991, 1,365 species were known from New Brunswick. That number had increased to 2,703 by 2013, as a result of a series of publications in three previous special ZooKeys issues and other publications. In spite of that work, there were still gaps in the knowledge of the Coleopteran fauna.

Now, a group of insect specialists have joined forces in the name of their love for beetles, and compiled their findings from the last three years, reporting another 303 species for New Brunswick, including thirty-two species new to science. All of these records are published in a special issue, titled “The Coleoptera of New Brunswick and Canada: Providing baseline biodiversity and natural history data” of the open access journal ZooKeys.

It might have been only three years, but the authors of the present issue have expanded the beetle fauna of New Brunswick by 13%. On a longer timeline since 1991, the increase rises to an impressive 124%.

These figures come as a result of the 303 new records for New Brunswick that included 32 species, which the team have found to be new to science, 4 new North American records, 21 new Canadian records, 270 new provincial records, and 45 adventive species that have somehow arrived in the region from elsewhere. As a result, the beetle fauna of New Brunswick currently comprises 3,062 species.

“This information constitutes a baseline of biological knowledge that is critical to support other branches of science,” point out the authors.

“It is important to remind ourselves that the understanding of biological diversity is not possible without taxonomic research, which is thought by many to be the foundation of biological science,” they explain. “Data on the mega-diversity of life and knowledge on species identity and distribution require discovery, description, cataloguing, and organization in order to be made accessible to a wide audience.”

“This work would not have been possible to complete without the enthusiasm, determination, and professionalism of a small number of dedicated individuals who are acknowledged in the papers in this special issue,” the researchers conclude. “We hope that this special issue will generate a positive response and further interest in the Coleoptera fauna of New Brunswick and Canada, as many new discoveries await.”

###

Original source:

Webster RP, Bouchard P, Klimaszewski J, Sweeney JD (2016) History of Coleoptera collecting in New Brunswick, Canada: advancing our knowledge of the Coleoptera fauna in the early 21st century. In: Webster RP, Bouchard P, Klimaszewski J (Eds) The Coleoptera of New Brunswick and Canada: providing baseline biodiversity and natural history data. ZooKeys 573: 1-18. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.573.8123

Two brand new dung beetle species from montane grazing sites and forests in Mexico

While carrying out a biodiversity study, a Mexican-Italian research team discovered three new dung beetle species in montane forests disturbed by livestock grazing. Mexico has been a mecca for naturalists, and its dung beetle species are among the best known in the world. This is why the discovery of new species there is noteworthy. The present study, published in the open-access journal ZooKeys, describes two of them and highlights the need to further explore the biodiversity of disturbed ecosystems.

Mexico is a country that holds a vast number of creatures and ecosystems. There is in fact a fascinating phenomenon: tropical forests that have close affinities with South America co-occurring with temperate and arid areas shared with North America. Thus, Mexico has been particularly attractive to explorers ever since the 19th century.

A group of animals that has woken up a special interest for studies in Mexico is the so-called ‘dung beetles’. As their name suggests, dung beetles are insects that feed mainly on mammal faeces.

For decades, an international research team, led by Dr Gonzalo Halffter, has studied dung beetles across the world, especially in Mexico. As a consequence, the Mexican species are some of the best-known. However, Dr Halffter and his team are not interested exclusively in dung beetles, but also in evolutive phenomena, the effects of land-use change, ecosystems modification by human activities, and conservation biology. Such concerns seem to be of particular importance now that the terrestrial ecosystems in Mexico have been severely destroyed and disturbed by people.

Image 2

Livestock is one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss worldwide, which makes the present discovery particularly impressive. With at least 58% of the area of Mexico occupied with livestock farming, dung beetles are essential in cleaning up. While studying their diversity at conserved forests and cattle grazing sites across the mountains of Mexico, the researchers found some new species of dung beetles.

The first to discover these new dung beetles was Victor Moctezuma, a student of Dr Gonzalo’s at the Instituto de Ecología of Mexico.

“I was carrying out sampling for my Masters Degree studies, but I had no idea that new dung beetles could be found in a forest that is disturbed by human activities, such as livestock grazing and land-use change,” recalls Moctezuma. “So I was really surprised when I discovered three dung beetle species.” One of these species has already been published.

Apart from the two new dung beetles, formally called Onthophagus clavijeroi and Onthophagus martinpierai, the present paper also provides theories about the current distributions of these insects across the Mexican mountains and their putative evolutive relationships. As a whole, the study highlights the importance of disturbed forest for species discovery and conservation.

###

Original source:

Moctezuma V, Rossini M, Zunino M, Halffter G (2016) A contribution to the knowledge of the mountain entomofauna of Mexico with a description of two new species of Onthophagus latreille, 1802 (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Scarabaeinae). ZooKeys 572: 23-50. doi:10.3897/zookeys.572.6763

Zorro, the new Latin American fish species, takes off the mask to show its true identity

Unidentified since its discovery in 2007, a large fish species from Amazonia has failed to give out enough information about itself, leaving only insufficient hints about its genus. Nevertheless, three scientists have now recovered the missing pieces to puzzle out its mysterious identity. In their study, published in the open-access journal ZooKeys, they describe the fish as a new species and name it after the fictional secretive Latin American character Zorro.

The new fish, called Myloplus zorroi, is commonly known among the Brazilians as ‘pacu’ and is a relative to the piranha. The research team, led by Marcelo C. Andrade, Universidade Federal do Para, Brazil, recognised in a fish, collected by sport fishermen from Rio Madeira basin, Brazil, a previously found, yet undescribed species. Following their analysis, it turned out that its discoverers had assumed an incorrect genus for it.

Among the distinctive features of the new fish, which helped its rightful placement, are its characteristic teeth, specialised to crush seeds.

The new pacu species is quite large, growing up to 47,5 cm. It dwells in moderately to rapidly flowing clear rivers, running over rocky or sandy bottoms, and ranging from about 2 to 8 metres in depth. Its basis colour is reddish silver with darker markings running along the upper side of the body. The head is dark and the belly – pale yellow.

Curiously enough, although the name of the new fish is chosen as a tribute to Mauricio Camargo-Zorro, a researcher at the Instituto Federal de Educacao, Ciencia e Tecnologia, in recognition of his invaluable contribution to the fish fauna inventory from the Marmelos Conservation Area, zorroi is also a playful reference to the Latin American fictional character Don Diego de la Vega and his secret identity hidden behind the nickname of Zorro.

###

Original source:

Andrade MC, Jegu M, Giarrizzo T (2016) A new large species of Myloplus (Characiformes, Serrasalmidae) from the Rio Madeira basin, Brazil. ZooKeys 571: 153-167. doi: http://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.571.5983.

Moth genitalia is the key to snout grass borers from the Western Hemisphere

Two scientists have produced an illustrated key to define the subtle differences between the 41 species of snout moth grass borers that currently dwell in the Western Hemisphere. The researchers conclude that the adults moths are too tough to tell apart by external characters, and therefore, the only way to identify the species is by dissecting and comparing genitalia. The study is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

This identification key is compiled by Dr. M. Alma Solis and Dr. Mark Metz. Both scientists are Research Entomologists at the Agriculture Research Service’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory, USDA. Dr. Solis is Curator of the U.S. National Pyraloidea Collection located at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C.

The caterpillars of this group of snout moth grass borers feed on crops such as sugarcane, corn, rice, sorghum, and on native grasses throughout the Western Hemisphere, which makes many of the species quite harmful pests.

“The caterpillars of snout moth borers are economically important worldwide as pests of planted crops used for food or biofuel, so their identity is important for their control,” says Dr. Solis. “A key with images provides a simple way to identify adult moths, especially those that cannot be distinguished easily. A key to their identification is one of the most important results of taxonomic research.”

This research required locating ‘type specimens’ or original individuals that were used to describe the species in museums, borrowing them and preparing them for studies while avoiding inflicting any damage, so that they can be used by future researchers. These special specimens are the “standard bearer” for the scientific name and solidify the morphological as well as the molecular identity of a species.

Furthermore, Dr. Solis explained that it is not only important to be able to recognize if a species is new to science, as she and her colleagues recently discovered with a species feeding on Eastern gamagrass in the United States. It is also crucial for tying a species’ scientific name to its biology or genetic composition.

The biology of many moth species is still a mystery, but a recent study, where Dr. Solis participated, identified and studied the biology of some of the species. It showed that there may have been two introductions of the sugarcane borer moth species to southeastern United States and it is likely that there is a species which is currently ‘hidden’ under the same name. She concluded that there is still much left to discover about these moth species from the Western Hemisphere.

###

Original source:

Solis, M. A. & M. Metz. 2015. An illustrated guide to the identification of the known species of Diatraea Guilding (Lepidoptera: Crambidae: Crambinae) based on genitalia. Zookeys. 565:73-121. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.565.6797.

Undergraduate student takes to Twitter to expose illegal release of alien fish in Japan

Posing a significant threat to the native biodiversity in Japan, specifically that of threatened aquatic insects, some alien fishes, such as the bluegill, have become the reason for strict prohibitions. All activities potentially capable of introducing the species into the wild are currently punishable by either a fine of up to 3 million yen for a person (100 million yen for corporations), or a prison sentence of up to 3 years.

Recently, ten years after the law has been adopted, illegal release of bluegill fish has been reported for the first time with the help of a post on Twitter from Akinori Teramura, undergraduate student at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology and second author of the present study. The case is reported and discussed by him and two scientists, affiliated with Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History, Japan, in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

In June 2015, Akinori Teramura tweeted two photographs of the invasive bluegill fish, both adults and juveniles, along with two young goldfish, which do not belong to the local fauna, either. In his post he identified the species and shared his surprise at the irresponsibility of the people who had released the fish. When lead author Dr Yusuke Miyazaki saw the tweet, he signalled his colleagues with the idea to publish the information as a scientific report.

The student found them in an outdoor public pool in Yokohama city, Japan, while it was being cleaned before being opened ahead of the summer. Usually, these facilities are closed to the public during the colder seasons and it is then when native aquatic insect species, such as dragonflies and diving beetles, find spawning and nursery habitats in them. Curiously enough, though, the pool had been isolated from natural waters since its construction.

7577_ZK_Data-mining and Twitter img3

Therefore, the researchers conclude that the alien fishes have most likely been released from an aquarium from a local shop or an aquarist who no longer wanted them. However, the authors note that according to the law, keeping bluegill fish in a home aquarium is illegal as well.

“Our report demonstrates an example of web data mining in the discipline of Citizen Science,” say the authors. “Web data mining has been rapidly developing over recent years, and its potential continues to expand.”

“Community awareness of this issue needs to be improved, and widespread reporting of cases such as this one will help,” they conclude.

###

Original source:

 

Miyazaki Y, Teramura A, Senou H (2016) Biodiversity data mining from Argus-eyed citizens: the first illegal introduction record of Lepomis macrochirus macrochirus Rafinesque, 1819 in Japan based on Twitter information. ZooKeys 569: 123-133. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.569.7577

New bush tomato species is the link between botany and an Oscar-nominated Hollywood movie

A new Australian bush tomato species, discovered by a team of researchers led by biology professor Chris Martine of Bucknell University, has been named after main character Mark Watney from the book and film The Martian. The authors, among whom is the undergraduate student Emma Frawley, have published the new species in the open-access journal PhytoKeys.

Martine announced the new name, Solanum watneyi, in The Huffington Post last year when he described it as a tribute to the heroic portrayal of Watney as a NASA botanist and engineer who saves himself with plant science expertise after being stranded on Mars.

In fact, Matt Damon’s botanist character impressed both the audience and the critics so much that it resulted in several Academy Awards nominations to the whole production team. The actor himself received a Golden Globe among many other prestigious recognitions including the BAFTA for Best Actor and the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Actor.   

This is a botanist portrayal that turns an unusually bright spotlight on authentic scientific endeavor,” Martine explains the choice. “Scientist heroes are already unusual in Hollywood, but a space-deserted protagonist who studies plants as a profession is something extraordinary.

However, according to Martine, the decision to name the species after Watney also has some taxonomic relevance.

“The plant that Watney manages to grow on Mars is none other than Solanum tuberosum (the potato), a member of the same genus as our new species,” he says.

This connection was not missed by Andy Weir, author of the book-turned-movie and father of the Watney character, who expressed his approval of the name on his Facebook page.  

“What higher honor could a botanist like Watney ask for than to have a plant named after him?” writes Weir. “And to have it be a relative of the potato as well? Perfect!”

[PR] Solanum watneyi Martine Img2Martine collected specimens of the new species during a six-week expedition to the Northern Territory of Australia with his wife, Rachel, and their two children. Rachel drew the illustration of the species that appears in the PhytoKeys paper.

In order to make sure the new species is not in fact a previously known and closely related Solanum species, the family team collected hundreds of seeds of both species. Thus, the plants could be grown and compared side-by-side in a research greenhouse.

In the summer of 2015, Bucknell undergraduate student Emma Frawley, class 2017, studied the plants, ultimately gathering and analyzing enough morphometric data to confirm the distinctiveness of Solanum watneyi. This is how Frawley, a double major in environmental studies and Spanish, became a co-author of the present paper.

The new species occurs in and around the western part of Judbarra/Gregory National Park, where it was occasionally encountered by regional botanists who nicknamed the oddball plant “Bullita” after the cattle station that once operated in the area.

“The nickname started being applied in the 1970s,” said Martine, who studied historical collections of the plant at the Northern Territory Herbarium. “But no one had yet done statistical comparisons between that plant and its similar relative.”

Watney is not the only one being recognized by the botanical community following the release of The Martian. In recognition of his botanist star turn, the Botanical Society of America has extended an honorary membership to actor Matt Damon, who portrays the space botanist in the film.

 

Note:  Also listed as authors on the recent publication are Bucknell University Burpee Postdoctoral Fellow Jason Cantley and University of California-Berkeley Research Botanist Ingrid Jordon-Thaden.

 

Original source:

 

Martine CT, Frawley ES, Cantley JT, Jordon-Thaden IE (2016) Solanum watneyi, a new bush tomato species from the Northern Territory, Australia named for Mark Watney of the book and film “The Martian”. PhytoKeys 61: 1–13. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.61.6995

Four new orchid species discovered during Lengguru 2014 expedition, West Papua, Indonesia

One of the biggest scientific expeditions ever undertaken in Indonesia, Lengguru 2014, made it possible to study and collect dozens of unknown plant and animal species, including four new orchids. Curiously, the research team, led by Dr. Lina Juswara, Cibinong Science Centre, Indonesia, collected three of these novelties over the span of a single day at the top of a small and unexplored mountain at 1000-metre elevation. The findings, which confirm previous suggestions that many species still await discovery there, are described and published in the open-access journal Phytokeys.

Thanks to the 2014 Lengguru scientific expedition some of the mysteries of Lengguru, an almost impenetrable mountainous area in an isolated and difficult-to-reach part of the Indonesian half of the New Guinea island, have been revealed. About a hundred participants, including 25 European and 45 Indonesian scientists, took part in it with the shared goal to collect essential data on the biodiversity of West Papua.

Lengguru remains one of the last unexplored territories on the planet. Covering an area, comparable in size to Sardinia, it consists of limestone formations, known as ‘karst’, forming a mosaic of natural ecosystems. The Lengguru 2014 expedition attempted to investigate Lengguru’s biodiversity in order to generate scientific data for molecular, ecological, taxonomical and biogeographical studies.

During the 6-week expedition, 72 fertile/flowering orchid specimens have been collected from the field by the internal team of Indonesian, French and Belgian botanists. So far, four new species have been identified among them.

“After the expedition, we examined and compared the Lengguru orchids with reference material housed in scientific collections,” explains Dr. Lina Juswara. Together with Dr. Vincent Droissart from the Research Institute for Development, France, they were the experts in charge to gather data on the large and glamorous Orchid family during the expedition. The identifications, descriptions and drawings of the new species were realized in close collaboration with Dr. Andre Schuiteman, Royal Botanical Garden Kew, United Kingdom, an internationally recognized expert on the orchid flora of Asia.

15112014-Bulbophyllum leucoglossum_copyright V Droissart IRD (2)

New Guinea is known to harbor one of the richest orchid floras in the world, surpassed only by Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. All four new orchid species discovered in Lengguru have been collected in high altitude forest, at over 1000 meters above sea level. These particular habitats, usually shrouded in clouds, are home to an exceptional plant diversity with a high degree of endemism, meaning the species cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The specific environmental conditions and the very small surface occupied by these ‘isolated islands’ of mountain forests make them particularly vulnerable to global climate change.

“Large parts of New Guinea have been overlooked in terms of collection initiatives and it is likely that many species still await discovery there”, says Dr. Lina Juswara. “More field studies are also required to find additional populations of the new species we found in Lengguru, in order to better characterize their habitat, ecology and conservation status. Of the four new orchid species collected during the expedition, three were collected on a single day, confirming that the flora of Lengguru is still far from completely described.”

###

15112014-Bulbophyllum leucoglossum_copyright V Droissart IRD

Original source:

Juswara L, Schuiteman A, Droissart V (2016) Four new orchid species from the Lengguru fold belt, West Papua, Indonesia. PhytoKeys 61: 47-59. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.61.7590

Additional Information:

Fieldwork, laboratory activities and herbarium visits were supported by the Project Lengguru 2014 (http://www.lengguru.org), conducted by the French Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), the University of Papua (UNIPA), the University of Cendrawasih (UNCEN), the University of Musamus (UNMUS) and the Sorong Fisheries Academy (APSOR) with corporate sponsorship from COLAS Group, Veolia Water and the Total Foundation.

The Castaway: New monitor lizard fills top-order predator role on remote Pacific island

Separated by several hundred kilometres from its next of kin, a new species of blue-tailed monitor lizard unique to the remote Mussau Island has been described. Unknown to science until recently and formally termed the “isolated”, it is the only large-sized land-living predator and scavenger native to the island.

Dubbed a “biogeographical oddity” by its discoverers, led by Valter Weijola, a graduate student from the University of Turku, Finland, the lizard species is also the first new monitor lizard to be described from the country of Papua New Guinea in over twenty years. The finding was published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Monitors play an important ecological role in many island ecosystems in the southwest Pacific. Predatory mammals have never colonized the region due to the isolation of these islands. Instead, these large, active and intelligent lizards fill the role of top-predators and scavengers. The Pacific monitor lineage to which the new species belongs have been so successful at oversea dispersal that a number of different species now occupy almost every island from the Moluccas in Indonesia to the eastern Solomon Islands and even Micronesia.

The new endemic species was observed and studied during fieldwork by Weijola and local assistants in the relatively dry coastal vegetation of Mussau, but it is likely that it also persist in the remnants of intact forest in the interior of the island.

in habitat

The formally described female lizard, or holotype, measures 1 m with the tail being one and and a half times the length of the dominantly black-coloured body covered with yellow and orange markings. The tail of the adults shows varying degrees of turquoise to bluish pigmentation. Another distinctive feature for the species is the pale yellow tongue, which is a trait shared only by three other species of Pacific monitors. The new species is known to eat crabs, other reptiles and their eggs, and small birds.

“Usually monitors like these will eat just about anything they can catch and kill, as well as carcass and turtle eggs when available,” explains Weijola. “While young, Pacific monitor lizards are highly secretive and subsist mainly on insects and other small animals.”

The new species, which can grow to well over a meter in length, was named Varanus semotus, a Latin reference to the remoteness and isolation of the relatively small and partly volcanic island where the lizard was found. Close examination revealed the reptile to be distinct from its relatives from New Guinea and New Britain. Genetic studies, conducted by co-authors Stephen Donnellan, South-Australian Museum, and Christer Lindqvist, Åbo Akademi University, showed that the species has been isolated for a long time, estimatedly 1-2 million years, or even longer.

Varanus2

“Isolation is the keyword here,” says Weijola. “It is what has driven speciation and made the South-Pacific region one of the World’s biodiversity hotspots.” For anything to arrive on Mussau (from New Guinea or New Britain) it would need to cross 250-350 kilometers of open sea, and this doesn’t happen frequently. So, once the ancestor arrived, perhaps in the form of a gravid female, the population must have been completely isolated.””These islands are full of unique creatures often restricted in distribution to just one island or island group,” explains the researcher. “Yet, we know relatively little about them. Even large species of reptiles and mammals are regularly being discovered, not to mention amphibians and invertebrates. This is what makes it such a biologically valuable and fascinating region.”

###

Original source:

Weijola V, Donnellan SC, Lindqvist C (2016) A new blue-tailed Monitor lizard (Reptilia, Squamata, Varanus) of the Varanus indicus group from Mussau Island, Papua New Guinea.ZooKeys 568: 129-154. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.568.6872