New Species in Papau New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

The BBC Natural History Unit recently reported on new species in Papau New Guinea.  The British Broadcasting company visited the country early in 2009 to film a documentary.  The BBC got a lot more than beautiful video footage…. they discovered 30 new species of animals living in the crater of the Mount Bosavi volcano!

As reported in Time Magazine, the new creatures that were found included a 32-inch long rat, 16 species of frogs, three types of fish and a bat.  A biologist on the team, George McGavin, stated:

“It was mind-blowing.  The crater of Mount Bosavi really is the Lost World.”

The statistics regarding new species in Papua New Guinea are startling.  According to Time, about 50 a day are identified.  In fact, in 2006 close to 17,000 new plants and animals were listed.  About 1% of the world’s total 1.8 million “official” species have been identified in Papua New Guinea.

New Species in Papua New Guinea

While this is generally very good news – let alone, fascinating – the relative gain of the discovery of new species comes at a crucial time.  With global climate change and other factors, we are losing existing plant and animal species at a rate that is 10,000 times th natural rate.

No, that is not a typo.  According to Time Magazine, we have entered the 6th greatest mass extinction in our planet’s history.  The primary reason is that the environment is changing faster than life can adapt.

Beautiful scenery in Papua New Guinea

Among various things we can do to stop or reverse this alarming rate is to cease the significant cutting down of tropical forests.  The rain forests in South America alone include huge numbers of animals and planets… more than any other place on the planet.

Notwithstanding the amazing new species in Papua New Guinea, the area lost more than 1/4th of its forest in a 30-year period recently.  Can you even begin to imagine the loss of 14.8 million acres of untouched trees cut down each year?

With the exciting news of new species in Papau New Guinea is the sobering contemplation that there may be many additional creatures that could never be discovered before they are gone from the planet.