Top new species discoveries of 2016, and how fig trees can save rainforests
This being the last Mongabay Newscast of 2016, we\u2019re bringing you the top new species discoveries of the year. Here at Mongabay we report on a lot of environmental science and conservation news. It\u2019s not always the most cheery subject matter, especially when we\u2019re reporting on endangered or extinct species. But it\u2019s important to remember that we\u2019re also discovering new species all the time.
Mongabay staff writer Shreya Dasgupta rounded up all of the top new species discovered in 2016, including 13 new dancing peacock spiders, a crab that was discovered in a pet market, a new species of whale, a tarantula that shoots balls of barbed hair at its enemies, and one bird that is now 13 distinct species.
We also speak with author Mike Shanahan, whose new book Gods, Wasps, and Stranglers: The secret history and redemptive future of fig trees\xa0looks at this tropical species\u2019 biology and key ecological role, as well as its deep cultural (and spiritual) place in human history. If listening to this episode of the Newscast leaves you wanting to hear more from Shanahan, Mongabay editor Erik Hoffner interviewed him back in November. \u201cWild fig trees are magnets to biodiversity. Plant them and other species, both plant and animal, soon follow,\u201d Shanahan said then.