If I lived elsewhere in the multiverse, this is the news and cool space stuff I’d have been covering this week. Unfortunately, in this universe I didn’t have the time. Last weekend, Cassini dipped down close to Enceladus to “taste” the jets that erupt from its surface. For some background on Enceladus, see my entry [...]

A new genus of bat has been discovered in South Sudan, the world’s newest country. The strikingly striped bat has been placed into the genus Niumbaha, which means “rare” or “unusual” in the Zande language of the region. A paper describing the bat was published this week in the journal ZooKeys. This actually isn’t the [...]

In 1877 a British lieutenant colonel and naturalist named R.H. Beddome looked under a rock in the Indian state of Orissa and discovered a new gecko species. That was the last time it was ever seen. Until now. After more than 135 years, the Jeypore ground gecko (Geckoella Jeyporensis) has been rediscovered by a team [...]

Two Brazilian researchers doing some recreational bird-watching have made an amazing discovery: the first nest ever found for the critically endangered Stresemann’s bristlefront (Merulaxis stresemanni). One of the world’s rarest birds, the bristlefront has an estimated population of just 15 individuals, all at the 600-hectare Mata do Passarinho Reserve run by Fundação Biodiversitas in the [...]

Protecting the adorable but endangered slow loris—the world’s only venomous primate—from the illegal pet trade suddenly got a little harder. According to a paper pending publication in the American Journal of Primatology, what was once recognized as one slow loris species and two subspecies is actually four different species. Lead author Rachel Munds, an anthropology [...]

If you have seen any of Peter Jackson’s movies, such as this week’s release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, then you have probably noticed the logo for the special effects company Weta Workshop, which works on most of the director’s New Zealand–based projects. The workshop is named after a bunch of endemic New Zealand [...]

In another example of how little we know about the natural world, scientists recently got their first up-close glimpse at the rare and elusive spade-toothed beaked whale (Mesoplodon traversii). Tragically, the discovery was not of living whales but a mother and her male calf that died after beaching themselves. Until now, the spade-toothed beaked whale [...]

Nine new species of colorful, arboreal tarantulas have been discovered in central and eastern Brazil, an area where only seven tarantula species had previously been known. All nine of the newly described species are threatened by habitat loss and potentially by overzealous spider collectors. As described this week in the open-access journal ZooKeys, the newly [...]

A tiny new lizard species has been discovered in Western Australia, and just in time: its only known habitat is already being destroyed. The six-centimeter-long coastal plains skink (Ctenotus ora) lives in the sand dunes of the Swan Coastal Plain, which starts about 70 kilometers south of Perth. According to the researchers from Australian National [...]

What lizard species has been wiped out in its natural habitat and now depends on three breeding females breeding in captivity for its long-term survival? Oh wait, I can’t quite answer that, because the species has no official name. For now it’s being called the orange-tailed skink. It was only discovered in 1995 and to [...]

Like many biologists, the German biologist Oliver Zompro spends thousands of hours looking at specimens of dead animals. He found his first new species when he was twenty. By the age of thirty he had named dozens of wild new forms. While other people around him did crossword puzzles and drank lattes, he explored the [...]

It took space shuttle Discovery several months to get off the ground on its final mission, but the shuttle’s landing came off without a hitch. Discovery touched down on schedule, just before noon March 9, putting an end to its 26 years of service, in which the orbiter made 39 trips to space and logged [...]

Space shuttle Discovery is on its way to the International Space Station (ISS), blasting off at 6:21 a.m. local time Monday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center without any of the weather– or equipment–related delays that have plagued the past several launches. The shuttle is ferrying a seven-member crew to the ISS to perform a complex [...]