Newly Discovered/Described Species 2022

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High school students describe two new species of scorpions

California now has two new scorpions on its list of species, thanks to the efforts of two keen-eyed high school students from the Bay Area and the California Academy of Sciences. Harper Forbes and Prakrit Jain, avid users on the community science platform iNaturalist, discovered the new-to-science scorpions while trawling the thousands of observations uploaded by other users in the state.

New species Paruroctonus soda and Paruroctonus conclusus are playa scorpions, meaning they can only be found around dry lake beds, or playas, from the deserts of Central and Southern California. For scientists, conservation managers, and the growing communities of wildlife observers on platforms like iNaturalist, these newly described species provide a better understanding of California's biodiversity and the places most in need of protection—a cornerstone of the Academy's Thriving California initiative. The budding naturalists collaborated with Curator of Arachnology Lauren Esposito, Ph.D., to formally describe the species in a study published today in ZooKeys.

High school students describe two new species of scorpions
 
This is not a specific species discovery and description per say, but this article is still relevant enough to share here.

Study Finds Hundreds of Mammals Are Waiting to Be Discovered

New species may be hidden in areas that have more comprehensive geographic ranges with high variability in temperature and precipitation.

Mammals are some of the most well-studied animals on the planet, but hundreds of unidentified species could still be hiding in plain sight.

It is estimated that only one to ten percent of Earth's species have been formally described in the scientific literature. The phenomenon, called the Linnean Shortfall, means that there is a discrepancy between the number of species with taxonomic descriptions and the number of actual living species roaming Earth, which can introduce challenges for preserving biodiversity.

Study Finds Hundreds of Mammals Are Waiting to Be Discovered | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine
 
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