New Guinea's Newbies

It's always good news to hear about the discovery of new species, rather than the disappearance of those already known. Happening upon unknown life forms reveals magic and mystery in the world we inhabit, and offers proof positive that one need not journey to the bottom of a deep ocean trench or distant star system to encounter terra incognita.

New Guinea continues to provide new finds for the most special of treasure hunter-those seeking life hitherto unknown to science. The latest discoveries come from the Muller mountains of Papua New Guinea and the Nakanai mountains of nearby New Britain, off New Guinea's coast.Some 200 new species of plant and animal were observed by Conservation International researchers.Their finds included the freaky looking tube nose fruit bat (previously seen but still little known, though scientists have verified that he is not related to Yoda) and the spooky pink-eyed katydid (both photographed by Piotr Naskrecki). The cute tiny frog, a member of the genus Litoria, also hails from the Muller mountains and was lensed by Stephen Richards.

Discussing the new finds, Richards, the team's leader, told AP, "They tell us how little we still know about the world. There's a lot of concern, quite rightly, about biodiversity loss and climate change and the impacts on biodiversity and what biodiversity means to us. ... Then we do projects like this and we discover, 'Hey - we don't even know what biodiversity is out there.'"