With all of the unfortunate statistics arising lately regarding the extremely high amount of various animals being put on the endangered species list, there has been much excitement about a multitude of new species that were found in the Suriname forest.
The Suriname rain forest, which is located in South America, presented quite a surprise to scientists who were exploring the area on an expedition. An astonishing 60 new species were found and the discovery was announced this past Thursday by tropical ecologist, Trond Larsen. The excursion, which was led by an organization known as Conservation International, was a non-profit study of the rainforests which had previously been unexplored regions.
The study lasted about three weeks long and gave evidence to 6 new frog species and 11 fish. Additionally, nearly 40 other unrecorded tropical species were found. Scientists have already named one of the frog species, giving it the name of “cocoa frog” due to its brown coloring. A new type of poisonous frog was also discovered which emits toxins through its mouth. The discovery of such a large number of frogs will undoubtedly impact the scientific world because of the previous amounts of frog species which had become extinct or endangered worldwide.
The expedition also resulted in the collection of data on thousands of other species that were present in Suriname’s forest. The data collected on the environment alone, gave evidence to the fact that the water conditions in the area are of an extremely high quality. This fact, along with the land mining policies of the neighboring country of Brazil, has led scientists to worry about the future of the Suriname rain forests. It is their hope that the land maintains its immense diversity and that the environment remains untouched so that the species continue to thrive.