Roughly 133 plants, 39 invertebrates, 26 fish, 10 amphibians, one reptile, one bird and one mammal were unwrapped over the past 6 years in the Eastern Himalayas, the reports stated.
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A monkey sneezing each time it rains, a fish that is ready to survive out of water for almost 4 days and a venomous pit viper with a shocking look that appears like a chunk of bijou: these are exclusively a handful of the tons of of latest species present in the previous couple of years amid the varied however exceedingly prone area of the east Himalayas.
Heather Sohl, WWF-UK’s chief adviser of species said that the discoveries show that there is a lot to learn about species that live on the planet.Sohl pointed out that experts discovered 211 new species in the region, which is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world.
The report, released on Monday in Bhutan, is titled Hidden Himalayas: Asias Wonderland, and maps out scores of new species found by scientists from various organisations across the regionspanning Bhutan, north-east India, Nepal, the far north of Myanmar and the southern parts of Tibet.
WWF has been actively involved in supporting these countries to progress towards green economies that value ecosystems and the services they provide to their population. According to the report, snub-nosed monkeys were seen to tuck their heads between knees when it rains, a strategy they have engineered to minimize rainwater entering their noses.
The list of species also constitutes blue-coloured “walking snakehead fish” that is capable to breathing in air.
Rhinopithecus strykeri, a newly discovered species of monkey, became very popular on the internet.
The only new reptile discovered in the eastern Himalayas since 2009, the bejeweled lance-headed pit viper (Protobothrops himalayansus), is also something special.
Considering that the Japanese Himalayas are also home to other highly threatened animals, such as the one-horned rhinoceros and the Asian elephant, the WWF and other conservationists have plenty of reasons to be concerned.
“Despite the fact that it was found in high numbers in a small stream, it is yet hard to distinguish whether this unique species is endemic to a single ecosystem within Myanmar, or spread throughout the region as a whole”, the conservation report says.
211 new species were discovered in the Himalayas, the World Wildlife Fund claimed. At the moment, only 25% of the Eastern Himalayas have intact wild habitats due to human development.
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The challenge that organizations like the WWF face is to both conserve the species that scientists have already identified and protect a region that likely shelters even more creatures and plants waiting to be discovered.
