More than 1.000 have been found in Papua New Guinea!
A true treasure of biodiversity was found in the forests and wetlands of the New Guinea over a period of just 10 years. More than 1.000 species have been identified of animal, bird, fish, insect and plant.
The WWF report Final Frontier: Newly Discovered species of New Guinea (1998-2008) shows that 218 new kinds of plants, 43 reptiles and 12 mammals, including a unique snub-fin dolphin, 580 invertebrates, 134 amphibians, 2 birds and 71 fish, among them an extremely rare 2.5m long river shark, have been found on the tropical island over a ten year period.
If you look at New Guinea in terms of biological diversity, it is much more like a continent than an island,” said Neil Stronach,, WWF staffer. Scientists found an average of two new species each week from 1998 to 2008 – nearly unheard of in this day and age.
New Guinea is the largest tropical island on Earth and is divided between the countries of Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the East and Indonesia in the West. It contains the third largest tract of rainforest in the world after the Amazon and the Congo. The island covers less than 0.5 per cent of the Earth’s landmass but shelters 6 to 8 per cent of the world’s species. An estimated two-thirds of these species are unique to New Guinea.
Source: Guardian, WWF.