The snub-fin dolphin, Orcaella heinsohni, discovered in 2005.
Credit: AFP/WWF
Monitor lizard,Varanus Macraei, discovered in 2001.
Credit: AFP/WWF
Paryphantopsis misimensis, an extraordinary bright yellow snail discovered in 2006.
Credit: WWF
The Giant Bent-Toed Gecko (Cyrtodactylus irianjayaensis) was discovered in 2001.
Credit: WWF
A large green tree-dwelling frog, Litoria dux.
Credit: AFP/WWF
MANILA: A frog with fangs, a blind snake and a round-headed dolphin are among more than 1,000 new species recently found on the Melanesian island of New Guinea.
Scientists made the astounding discoveries, which also included a river shark and dozens of butterflies, on New Guinea at a rate of two a week from 1998 to 2008, environment group WWF said in a new report on the island's natural habitat.
"This report shows that New Guinea's forests and rivers are among the richest and most biodiverse in the world," said WWF's Western Melanesia programme representative, Neil Stronach.
8% of the world's species
New Guinea, divided between Indonesia in the west and Papua New Guinea to the east, has one of the world's least spoilt and most stunning ecosystems.
Its rainforests are the third biggest in the world after the Amazon and the Congo, and, while the island covers just 0.5% of the Earth's landmass, it contains up to 8% of the world's species, according to WWF.
What was previously known about New Guinea's biodiversity was already breathtaking, such as the world's biggest butterfly - with a 30-cm wingspan - and giant rats that can grow up to a metre long.
Scratching the surface
Scientists believe that one square kilometre of the island's lowland rainforest may contain as many as 150 bird species, according to WWF.
The 1,060 species confirmed by scientists as new discoveries between 1998 and 2008 are believed to have only scratched the surface of New Guinea's dazzling ecosystems.
"Such is the extent of New Guinea's biodiversity that new discoveries are commonplace even today," WWF said in its report, titled Final Frontier: Newly Discovered Species of New Guinea.
Attenborough's anteater
One of the most notable finds documented in the WWF report was a round-headed and snub-finned dolphin, which swims in protected, shallow coastal waters near rivers and creek mouths.
Discovered in 2005 in Papua New Guinea, it was the first new dolphin species recorded anywhere in the world in three decades, and is now known to also exist in Australia, WWF said.
Another of the 12 mammals found over the decade was an anteater named in honour of British naturalist Sir David Attenborough, Sir David's Long-beaked Echinda or, scientifically, Zaglossus attenboroughi.
ocean
Does anyone think the radiation leaks in japan have anything do do with all of the new species being discovered?
Ocean Rep.
No
Yeah, evolution in New
Yeah, evolution in New Guinea hasn't been influenced given the short timeframe.
New species in New Guinea
The vast rugged mountainous topography and few research scientists are the reasons for so many new species being found. I spent 2 years in New Guinea studying the people & wildlife in 1973-74 at the Wau Ecology Institute. Identified hundreds of flora and fauna species, many new to science. Was the first outsider to visit some villages & they thought that I was a ghost, they had never seen a white man. Found a new bird of paradise & frog species in the Adelbert Mountains, all the specimens went back to USA research institutions. We explored and collected from the high altitude occasionally snow-covered tundra with furry ferns and gymnosperm Podocarp forests descending to Nothofagus beech forest, Castanopsis oak forest, klinky pine forests and lowland rainforests meeting coral reefs. We heard loud unknown calls from a big mammal & saw it cross the track in remote rainforest, black-furred, bipedal, man-like, was it the Mountain Diprotodontid Hulitherium thomasettii?