The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists have announced the top 10 new species described in 2007. On the list are an ornate sleeper ray, Electrolux; a 75-million-year-old giant duck-billed dinosaur; a shocking pink millipede; a rare, off-the-shelf frog; one of the most venomous snakes in the world; a fruit bat; a mushroom; a jellyfish named after its victim; a life-imitates-art "Dim" rhinoceros beetle; and the "Michelin Man" plant.
The taxonomists are also issuing a State of Observed Species (SOS) report card on human knowledge of Earth's species. In it, they report that 16,969 species new to science were discovered and described in 2006. The SOS report was compiled by ASU's International Institute for Species Exploration in partnership with the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, the International Plant Names Index, and Thompson Scientific, publisher of Zoological Record.
The majority of the 16,969 species described in 2006 were invertebrate animals and vascular plants, which according to the SOS report is consistent with recent years.
There are about 1.8 million species that have been described since Linnaeus initiated the modern systems for naming plants and animals in the 18th century. Scientists estimate there are between 2 million and 100 million species on Earth, though most set the number closer to 10 million.
The State of Observed Species report will be issued annually by ASU's International Institute for Species Exploration, along with the top 10 new species from the previous year. The International Institute for Species Exploration was created to advance the emerging field of cybertaxonomy in partnership with leading natural history collections, engineer new cyber tools, and educate and inspire the next generation of species explorers.
An international committee of experts, chaired by Janine Caira of the University of Connecticut, selected the top 10 new species for this year's list. Nominations were invited through the species.asu.edu website and generated by institute staff and committee members themselves.
