Congo expedition uncovers new species

Sorry blogging has been light this week, I did my summer research seminar and am working on two manuscripts based on the work, which means I've been inputting/analyzing data like a madwoman, in addition to studying for the GRE, so spare time has been hard to come by. I'm flying home tomorrow, crazy day today with packing and tying up loose ends here in Flagstaff, but despite being bone tired and having tons of work to do, I couldn't pass up posting on this story:

Apparently a recent research expedition sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society(my dream job is to be a field researcher for the WCS) has uncovered some really fascinating new species in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are six new species being reported, including FOUR mammals! There are two shrews, a bat, and a rodent, although none of the reports I found went into much detail about them. The other two finds are frogs, making for a very interesting new roundup of species. Until recently this area, near Lake Tanganyika, has been virtually off-limits since the 1960s due to political instability, so this expedition and its discoveries are probably just a taste of what is in there waiting to be discovered. Snipped from the Science Daily article:

In addition to the new animal species, the survey found that the region of gallery forests and woodlands is extremely rich in biodiversity, containing a number of large mammals such as chimpanzees, bongos, buffalo, elephants, leopards, several types of monkey including a subspecies of colobus only found here, and others, although most of these large-bodied species were found at low densities, probably due to poaching. The survey also found a high diversity of birds, reptile, and amphibian species.

Hopefully bringing attention to the area will spur some anti-poaching action, and in the meantime it will be interesting to see what other new discoveries the area will yield in the future.