This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The globe is full of unknown species. But is it really possible to find a completely new animal species in the middle of the largest city in the United States?
"People like to imagine that undiscovered species are only found in remote rainforests or the great ocean depths, but they can be found everywhere. Even in areas that are well studied, we continue to discover species that are new to science," says Emily Hartop. Hartop is an entomologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's natural history museum in Trondheim, the NTNU University Museum.
She is collaborating with multiple research partners—the American media outlet Vox, the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at the University of Guelph in Canada, and the Prospect Park Alliance and Central Park Conservancy in New York—in the hunt for unknown life in the largest city in the United States. She feels confident that they will find something. In my field, discovering new species is the rule rather than the exception," Hartop says.
"The reality is that the majority of Earth's animal species are still unknown to us humans. Scientists have formally named around 2 million species, but the actual number of species is perhaps 10 times higher," Hartop says. You may have already guessed that Hartop isn't looking for unknown bear or gorilla species.
We have—unfortunately, some might say—a pretty good grasp of them. Insects, on the other hand, constitute a large blank spot on the species map, especially those within the category of "dark taxa"—groups of organisms that are extremely species-rich but about which we know very little. "A lot of dark taxa are small insects, mites and other organisms that receive little attention compared with more charismatic groups like mammals and bees.
They are often both common and ecologically important, but we simply don't have enough specialists to get an overview of them." You may be wondering how you can even begin to find unknown insects in the middle of a city. Well, it happens in several stages. The hunt for unknown life in New York is being carried out by setting up tentlike insect traps—called Malaise traps—two of which have now been placed in Central Park and Prospect Park.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
