biodiversity Archives - Daniel Hudon

New Species in 2020

Despite the pandemic, new species were discovered in a variety of ecosystems, from the forest floor, to its branches to high in its canopy, as well as at the bottom of the ocean. Here are some of our favorites.

A beautiful new monkey, the Popa langur, was discovered in Myanmar. Named after the mountain on which it is found, it has white rings around black eyes and gray fur, and is already classed as critically endangered because only 200-260 individuals are known in the wild.

Another primate, Jonah’s mouse lemur, was discovered in Madagascar. Only as large as a human fist, the mouse lemur has characteristic large eyes and a pointed snout. More than 100 lemur species are now known and almost all are endangered because of increasing deforestation in Madagascar, the last place where they have survived.

*Bulbophyllum dologlossum, not yet in bloom. Image by T.M. Reeve.*

Nineteen new species of tree-dwelling orchids were discovered on the island of New Guinea, known to have the most plant species of any island, though many are yet to be discovered. Among the new species, three are known for their beautiful flowers.

Not to be outdone, Madagascar revealed the “world’s ugliest orchid,” which produces small, brown, and, shall we say, hideous flowers.

Though one of Australia’s favorite marsupials, greater gliders, have long been known, last year the one species was discovered to be three. Scientists have suspected that morphological differences between gliders might indicate there are more than one species, and DNA evidence finally confirmed it. These possum-like mammals live high in the tree canopy, feed on eucalyptus leaves and glide from tree to tree, sometimes staying airborne for over three hundred feet.

Lilliputian frog, much magnified from its size of 10 mm long. Image by Trond Larsen.

One of the smallest amphibians in the world was discovered in the Bolivian Andes. Known as the Lilliputian frog, it is only ten millimeters long and hard to see because of its camouflage-brown color.

A giant hydroid – related to corals, anemones and sea fans – was seen for the first time on the bottom of the ocean, 2500 meters below the surface, in Australia. It has a single polyp that radiates like a sunflower or dandelion from a one meter long stem attached to the sandy bottom.

The same submersible that discovered the giant hydroid also discovered a giant siphonophore that is 150 feet long. Siphonophores are floating colonies of tiny creatures known as zooids that clone themselves and string together to work as a team. This one is now the longest animal known.

In recent years, Neville Winchester of the University of Victoria has discovered twenty new species of flies, mites and beetles hiding in moss mats high in the canopy of old growth trees on Vancouver Island. They are part of a unique ecosystem suspended more than 150 feet above the ground.

Yea biodiversity! Especially for a year when everything was shut down for so long. See below for sources and film clips (recommended!)

Sources:

Popa langur, Jonah’s mouse lemur, New Guinea orchids, Lilliputian frog: Mongabay

Ugly orchids: Royal Botanical Gardens Kew

Greater Gliders: Green Matters

Giant hydroid, Giant siphonophore: New Atlas (a film clip on the same page gives some stunning highlights of the submersible’s mission to the serene depths of the ocean, also found here).

Flies, mites and beetles: CBC (the three-minute film presents amazing views of this lofty old growth ecosystem)

Los Cedros and the Rights of Nature

From my article in The Revelator:

Should nature have rights? That question is being put to the test right now in Ecuador.

The critically endangered brown-headed spider monkey, a resident of Los Cedros

In 2008 the South American country made history when its new constitution declared that nature had “the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.” It was an unprecedented commitment, the first of its kind, to preserving biodiversity for future generations of Ecuadorians.

The constitutional change did not automatically protect nature, but it gave citizens what the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature describes as “the legal authority to enforce these rights on behalf of ecosystems. The ecosystem itself can be named as the defendant.”

The country could soon make history again when its Constitutional Court hears a case that seeks to apply these rights of nature to a protected forest, known as Bosque Protector Reserva Los Cedros, against large-scale copper and gold mining.

The threat stems from a 2017 change in government policy that allowed mining concessions on 6 million acres of lands, including at least 68% of Los Cedros — part of a hasty attempt to boost the mining sector and compensate for declining oil revenues. Experts say that policy appears to be unconstitutional, which has led to the present showdown.

“Mining in protected forests is a violation of Articles 57, 71 and 398 of the constitution: the collective rights of Indigenous peoples, the Rights of Nature, and the right of communities to prior consultation before environmental changes, respectively,” says ecologist Bitty Roy of the University of Oregon, who has conducted research at Los Cedros since 2008.

A Vital Reserve

Los Cedros is a remote, pristine, 17,000-acre cloud forest in northwest Ecuador and one of the most biodiverse places on the planet.

Conservation biologist Mika Peck, of the University of Sussex, describes Los Cedros as “a biodiversity hotspot within a hotspot — and of global importance in terms of conserving our natural history.”

He adds, “the reserve and all it maintains is priceless.”

The case is to be heard next week, October 19.

See the rest of my article at The Revelator

Artists and Extinction V: Brandon Ballengee

How can artists convey the idea of disappearance and extinction of species?

This has long been a question for Brandon Ballengee, a visual artist, biologist and environmental educator based in Louisiana, whose many art installations have been inspired by his ecological field and laboratory work.

Initially, Ballengee wanted to use silhouettes to show something as there but disappearing. But while experimenting with blacking out extinct animals in old nature magazines, he recalled that Robert Rauschenberg once created a work that was an erased de Kooning drawing. So, rather than erase extinct animals from books, he began to cut them out with an Exacto knife (as long as there were multiple copies of the book).

This led to the creation of his installation, “Framework of Absence.” Ballengee created the works from real historic artifacts that were around while the animal was fading into extinction. After the animal was excised from its source, the depiction was burned and the ashes were placed into black glass funerary urns etched with the names of the lost species.

At installations, viewers were asked to scatter the ashes, an act that Ballengee hoped would connect participants to the lost species and help prevent further extinctions.

A few examples show the power of the exhibit. Here is the Great Auk, missing from the North Atlantic:

2008Ð9. Extinct by the late 19th Century. Artist-cut print from the Bowen Editions Royal Octavo Birds (1840Ð71). Eighth edition printed and hand-colored in 1871 (just prior to plates being burned in warehouse fire). 6 3/4 x 10 3/8 inches. Photography by David W. Coulter. — 2008Ð9.
Extinct by the late 19th Century.
Artist-cut print from the Bowen Editions Royal Octavo Birds (1840Ð71).
Eighth edition printed and hand-colored in 1871 (just prior to plates being burned in warehouse fire).
6 3/4 x 10 3/8 inches.
Photography by David W. Coulter.

Here is the Spectacled Cormorant, missing from the Kamchatka Peninsula:

1869/2014. Artist cut and burnt hand-colored stone lithograph, etched glass urn, and ashes. 30 5/8 x 74 5/8 inches. Species last observed 1850s. Photo by Casey Dorobek. — 1869/2014. Artist cut and burnt hand-colored stone lithograph, etched glass urn, and ashes. 30 5/8 x 74 5/8 inches. Species last observed 1850s.
Photo by Casey Dorobek.

Here is the Guadalupe Caracara, missing from Guadalupe Island:

1860/2014. Artist cut and burnt wood engraving, etched glass urn, and ashes. 9 1/8 x 11 1/8 inches. Species last observed 1860s. Photo by Casey Dorobek. — 1860/2014. Artist cut and burnt wood engraving, etched glass urn, and ashes. 9 1/8 x 11 1/8 inches. Species last observed 1860s.
Photo by Casey Dorobek.

And here is the Sea Mink, missing from the rocky coasts of New England and Atlantic Canada.

1849/2014. Artist cut and burnt print hand-colored stone lithograph, etched glass urn, and ashes. 13 5/8 x 16 inches. Species last observed 1870s. Photo by Casey Dorobek. — 1849/2014. Artist cut and burnt print hand-colored stone lithograph, etched glass urn, and ashes. 13 5/8 x 16 inches. Species last observed 1870s.
Photo by Casey Dorobek.

More of Brandon Bellengee’s work can be found at his website.

Previous entries for my series on artists and extinction can be found starting here.