(Click on image to enlarge)
A new catfish species uses an adhesive organ on its belly
to glue itself to rocks.
(Courtesy of Dr. Heok Hee Ng, WWF)
Charles Darwin called Borneo “one great wild untidy luxuriant hothouse made by nature for herself.” The Southeast Asian island continues to be one of the world’s most sizzling hot spots of biodiversity. The World Wildlife Fund recently announced that in 2006 biologists identified a record 52 new species there: 30 fish, 2 tree frogs, 16 ginger plants, 3 trees, and a large-leafed plant.
Among them is a new species of Glyptothorax, one of the world’s strangest catfish. Glyptothorax doesn’t swim much, preferring instead to use suckers on a patch of belly below its mouth to cling to rocks in fast-moving rivers. Unlike other Glyptothorax, the new species has teeth that protrude even when its mouth is shut. That’s why the creature was named Glyptothorax exodon (meaning “out teeth”).
Countless species found nowhere else flourish in Borneo’s warm rain forests. Since 1994, more than 400 new species have been discovered on the island, including the world’s largest cockroach, a snake that changes colors like a chameleon, a catlike carnivorous mammal, and a pygmy elephant. The island is also one of two places in the world where endangered orangutans, elephants, and rhinos live together.
“What is special about Borneo is that big and small species alike are still being discovered,” says Adam Tomasek, director of the Borneo and Sumatra program at the WWF. Scientists need to act fast: Most of the newfound species are endangered by deforestation.
