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Top 10 New Organisms of 2008

The world's smallest snake, a prehistoric ant and microbes that may be 120,000 years old: These are just a few of the species revealed to the world in the last 12 months.

With animals going extinct at rates unseen since the dinosaurs disappeared, it's nice to be reminded that some species haven't even been discovered.

As Smithsonian Institute ornithologist Brian Schmidt said after finding the olive-backed forest robin: "It is definitely a reminder that the world still holds surprises for us."

Left: Stiphrornis pyrrholaeumus, also known as the olive-backed forest robin, was found during a biodiversity expedition in Gabon. Scientists know little more about S. pyrrholaeumus other than it exists.

Leptotyphlops carlae was found in a patch of forest on the eastern side of Barbados. Thin as a spaghetti noodle and small enough to curl up on a quarter, it's believed to embody the evolutionary limits of snake smallness.

Only three specimens of Martialis heureka have been found, all outside the Amazon jungle city of Manaus — but that's all scientists needed to trace a direct evolutionary lineage to the last known ancestor of all living ants, a subterranean creature that lived 120 million years ago.

The first new elephant shrew in 126 years, the 18-ounce Rhynchocyon udzungwensis — also called the grey-faced sengi — is a giant in its family (which, technically, are not shrews, though they are distantly related to elephants).

Undiscovered parasites are relatively common, but Myrmeconema neotropicum does something no other parasite can: mimic fruit. The abdomens of infected ants swell and turn bright red, making them easy targets for berry-hungry birds who then spread M. neotropicum's eggs in their droppings.

Carpomys melanurus, or the greater dwarf cloud rat, was first observed 112 years ago, and never seen again. Until it was found again in the rain-forest treetops of the Philippines, scientists thought it was extinct.

Tridacna costata is the first giant clam species found in two decades, and not a moment too soon: Fossil evidence suggests it once made up 80 percent of Red Sea giant clams, and now accounts for just 1 percent.

When Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences collection manager Mark Sabaj Pérez needed to name a new catfish, he thought immediately of Frank Gallagher, who managed the Academy's mail room for 37 years.

"I wanted to honor Frank for his many years of dedicated service to the global community of taxonomists and systematists in handling the shipping and receiving of countless loans of biological specimens," said Pérez. "I was impressed by Frank's dedication, his love for fellow employees, and his keen interest in the science we do. I simply thought, here is a guy who should be honored with his own catfish." The result was Rhinodoras gallagheri.


When biologists in New Zealand compared modern yellow-eyed penguins to centuries-old museum specimens, they realized that the birds were not the same species. Megadyptes waitaha is a brand-new species that's already extinct.


With only 8,000 of an estimated 3 million bacterial species identified, new bugs aren't hard to find. But unlike Chryseobacterium greenlandensis, they don't usually date from the late Pleistocene.

Thawed from ice recovered two miles below the surface of a 120,000-year-old Greenland glacier, C. greenlandensis appears unchanged by its time in deep-freeze. Its discoverers aren't sure whether it shut down or just slowed down its metabolism.

"There may be some metabolism occurring in the ice. If they have been dividing, it may be on a very low rate, on a scale we're not accustomed to — so slow, they could be dividing every 100 or 1,000 years," said Penn State biochemist Jennifer Loveland-Curtze.

Asked whether her samples may not have divided at all, and have survived in suspended animation for 120,000 years, Loveland-Curtze replied, "We don't know yet."

And there's more: 120,000 years could be the low end of C. greenlandensis' age.

"The bottom of the ice core had sediment where the glacier had rubbed against the earth," said Jean Brenchley, a Penn State microbiologist. "We don't know if the microorganisms were from snow that was deposited and became trapped, or were scooped up from the permafrost and there for millions of years."

World's Tallest Bungee Jumps

1. Jump From the top of Oprah’s Ego.


2. Jump From the top of the FCC’s “Do Not Call” list.


3. Jump From the top of Tom Cruise’s stack of gay porn.


4. Jump From the top of Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s stack of hate mail.


5. Jump From the top of Cher’s wig collection.

Amazing Ice Lantern and Snow Sculpture Festival

Visitors gather outside the gate of Zhaolin park at the ice lantern festival in Harbin, China ..



Every year the Harbin ice lantern festival opens on 22 December ..



The event, recognised as home to ice and snow art in China, lasts until February ..



This year is the 35th ice lantern festival. The festival is internationally renowned for its exquisite sculptures..



This year's ice lantern festival has over 2,000 illuminated ice scultpures on display..



It began in 1985 and considers itself to be China's greatest ice artwork festival, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors..



The city's location in northeast China accounts for its arctic climate which provides abundant ice and snow..



This year, the festival is Disney sponsored and themed

5 Creepy Beach sculpture To Scare off Sunbathers

For most public the beach is a place to relax, mainly when visited as part or a celebration. It's a place to forget the doubts of every day life look out to a with hope calm sea and loll out on a slip of lukewarm sand. So it seems shocking that on some beaches around the world, artists have been chosen to show some of the creepiest structures known to man that are sure to devastate the most hard-edged of tourists, especially at a time when the ramparts are down.

1. Hand Of Harmony, Homigot, Korea


If I were to wake up from dozing on a beach to see a giant's hand reaching out from the shallow waters in front of me, I'd be extremely susceptible to a spot of panic. The Hand Of Harmony has been worrying tourists in Korea since 1999. No word on the cause of death.

2. Sperm Whale, Scheveningen Beach, The Netherlands


Unlike your average Sperm Whale, this monster is made from wood, aluminum and polyester and was placed on Scheveningen Beach in July of this year. Those tourists not in the loop would be forgiven for placing their towels as far away as possible.

3. Another Place, Liverpool, England


A beach in Liverpool is home to dozens of stationary, zombie-like statues, all facing out to sea in various locations. To say it's a creepy scene is an understatement and one has to wonder just how many sunbathers have been forced to leave for another beach after being given the chills by these sculptures.

4. A Room Where It Always Rains, Barcelona, Spain


Juan Munoz’s 'Una Habatacio on Sempre Plou' (A Room Where It Always Rains) is possibly the creepiest piece of beach art on earth and consists of 5 stone weebles trapped in a cage on a strip of sand in Barcelona. The closer you get, the scarier it becomes, until you finally see their pained faces and drop your ice-cream.

5. Couple, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, England


Just how many panicked emergency calls have been made due to this bizarre statue causing people to believe two giants are about to be smashed to death by waves is unknown. What we do know is that, under the right circumstances, this piece of art could easily cause mild palpitations and extreme confusion.