Episode 262: Animals Discovered in 2021
b"It's the second annual discoveries episode! Lots of animals new to science were described in 2021 so let's find out about some of them.\\n\\nFurther reading:\\n\\nFirst description of a new octopus species without using a scalpel\\n\\nMarine Biologists Discover New Species of Octopus\\n\\nBleating or screaming? Two new, very loud, frog species described in eastern Australia\\n\\nMeet the freaky fanged frog from the Philippines\\n\\nNew alpine moth solves a 180-year-old mystery\\n\\nMeet the latest member of Hokie Nation, a newly discovered millipede that lives at Virginia Tech\\n\\nFourteen new species of shrew found on Indonesian island\\n\\nNew beautiful, dragon-like species of lizard discovered in the Tropical Andes\\n\\nNewly discovered whale species\\u2014introducing Ramari\\u2019s beaked whale (Mesoplodon eueu)!\\n\\nScientists describe a new Himalayan snake species found via Instagram\\n\\nThe emperor dumbo octopus (deceased):\\n\\n\\n\\nThe star octopus:\\n\\n\\n\\nNew frog just dropped (that's actually the robust bleating tree frog, already known):\\n\\n\\n\\nThe slender bleating tree frog:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe screaming tree frog:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe Mindoro fanged frog:\\n\\n\\n\\nSome frogs do have lil bitty fangs:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe hidden Alpine moth, mystery solver:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe Hokie twisted-claw millipede:\\n\\n\\n\\nOne of 14 new species of shrew:\\n\\n\\n\\nThe snake picture that led to a discovery:\\n\\n\\n\\nShow transcript:\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\nThis episode marks our 5th year anniversary! I also finally got the ebook download codes sent to everyone who backed the Kickstarter at that level. The paperback and hardback books will hopefully be ready for me to order by the end of February and I can get them mailed out to backers as soon as humanly possible. Then I\\u2019ll focus on the audiobook! A few Kickstarter backers still haven\\u2019t responded to the survey, either with their mailing address for a physical book or for names and birthdays for the birthday shout-outs, so if that\\u2019s you, please get that information to me!\\nAnyway, happy birthday to Strange Animals Podcast and let\\u2019s learn about some animals new to science in 2021!\\nIt\\u2019s easy to think that with all the animals already known, and all the people in the world, surely there aren\\u2019t very many new animals that haven\\u2019t been discovered yet. But the world is a really big place and parts of it, especially the oceans, have hardly been explored by scientists.\\nIt can be confusing to talk about when an animal was discovered because there are multiple parts to a scientific discovery. The first part is actually finding an animal that the field scientists think might be new to science. Then they have to study the animal and compare it to known animals to determine whether it can be considered a new species or subspecies. Then they ultimately need to publish an official scientific description and give the new animal a scientific name. This process often takes years.\\nThat\\u2019s what happened with the emperor dumbo octopus, which was first discovered in 2016. Only one individual was captured by a deep-sea rover and unfortunately it didn\\u2019t survive being brought to the surface. Instead of dissecting the body to study the internal organs, because it\\u2019s so rare, the research team decided to make a detailed 3D scan of the octopus\\u2019s body instead and see if that gave them enough information.\\nThey approached a German medical center that specializes in brain and neurological issues, who agreed to make a scan of the octopus. It turned out that the scan was so detailed and clear that it actually worked better than dissection, plus it was non-invasive so the preserved octopus body is still intact and can be studied by other scientists. Not only that, the scan is available online for other scientists to study without them having to travel to Germany.\\nThe emperor dumbo octopus grows around a foot long, or 30 cm, and has large fins on the sides of its mantle that look like elephant ears. There are 45 species of dumbo octopus known and ..."