New animal species found in 'the lost world'

Posted on October 08, 2009 by Alyssa Mercadante

More than 30 new species of animals were discovered in Papua New Guinea this past spring by a crew of scientists, academics and filmmakers from the BBC that was filming for a nature documentary, according to an article in TIME Magazine.

The creatures were found living inside the crater of the extinct volcano, Mount Bosavi.

"The crater of Mount Bosavi really is the lost world," George McGavin, a biologist with the BBC team, said, according to the article.

Among the animals found was a giant rat, that scientists named the Bosavi woolly rat that measured 32.2 in. and weighed more than 3.3 lb. making it one of the largest rodents on Earth, according to the article.

Other discovered creatures included various species of frogs, fish, birds, caterpillars and a bat. The crater is three kilometers wide and the main predators are giant monitor lizards, according to an article in The Guardian, a British newspaper.

These animals were able to live in the crater because it had been practically undisturbed by humans. While it seems the number of found animals is great, the discovery of new species happens quite often, according to the TIME article.

"Biologists are identifying new species at a torrid rate, about 50 a day; nearly 17,000 new plants and animals were described in 2006 alone, or some 1% of the 1.8 million species that have been recognized so far," according to the article.

Recently, Sept. 28, Australian researchers discovered 850 new species of invertebrates, according to the Discovery Channel.

Each year, the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University lists the top 10 new species from the previous year, which are selected by an "international committee of experts," according to msnbc.com. The top 10 new species of 2009 include the world's smallest snake, the world's longest insect, the ghost slug and a new species of bacteria that exists in hairspray, according to msnbc.com.