Rain Forest's Exotic Bounty: Tiny Frogs, Pink-Eyed Katydids

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By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 05 October 2010 08:10 pm ET)

This newly-discovered species of katydid lives in the forest canopy. Credit: Piotr Naskrecki, Conservation International

Piotr Naskrecki hunts katydids with sound. The insects are masters at blending in with their environment, especially at night when they're most active. So entomologists like Naskrecki, a researcher at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, trace the katydids through the darkness by their calls, using special equipment to translate the high-pitched chirping into sounds detectable by the human ear.

Last year in Papua New Guinea, these blind katydid chases paid off. Exploring the remote rain forests of the island with a team of scientists convened by Conservation International, Nasrecki found himself discovering five to 10 new katydid species per night.

"In some cases, nearly 80 percent of what I found was new to science," Naskrecki told LiveScience. "Almost every species I collected was new, or it was something that had not been seen for 100 years or so. To me, it was like landing on another planet."

Even the known species in the forests are mysterious. This feather-tailed possum species was first spotted in 1985, but researchers still don't know anything about it. Credit: Stephen Richards, Conservation International
more

http://www.livescience.com/animals/new-species-discovered-papau-new-guinea-101005.html

more pics

http://news.discovery.com/earth/papua-new-guinea-animals-plants.html