Top ten new species of 2009

Via Why Evolution Is True, I see that the International Institute for Species Exploration has released its top ten list of new species discovered last year (including the psychedelic frogfish shown in the above video, a minnow with fangs, and a deep-sea worm that releases green luminescent "bombs" when threatened).

And this article from Arizona State University notes that a whopping 18,225 new species of plants and animals were identified in 2008 (the most recent year in which the complete data are available), as well as another 2,140 new fossil species. With the rising rate of extinctions in the world, you've got to wonder how many species are going extinct before we even discover they exist.

And we're now seeing extinctions related to global warming (including frogs and lizards), not just from over-fishing, clear-cutting, and other loss of habitat. We're already in the greatest wave of extinctions since the dinosaur-killing asteroid, and it's expected to get far, far worse.

This is our responsibility. Because of our greed, our apathy, and our willful ignorance, we're leaving our children and grandchildren a much poorer world. I fear we will not be remembered fondly by our descendants.