Go Back
  • For Business
  • |
  • Warnings
  • Data Suite
  • Newsletters
  • Advertising
  • Superior Accuracy™
At least 80 dead, 11 girls from camp still missing after catastrophic flooding in Texas. Read the latest Chevron right
Chantal moving inland after making landfall in South Carolina. Get details Chevron right

Columbus, OH

89°F
Location Chevron down
Location News Videos
Use Current Location
Recent

Columbus

Ohio

89°
No results found.
Try searching for a city, zip code or point of interest.
settings
Columbus, OH Weather
Today WinterCast Local {stormName} Tracker Hourly Daily Radar MinuteCast Monthly Air Quality Health & Activities

Around the Globe

Hurricane Tracker

Severe Weather

Radar & Maps

News

News & Features

Astronomy

Business

Climate

Health

Recreation

Sports

Travel

For Business

Warnings

Data Suite

Newsletters

Advertising

Superior Accuracy™

Video

Winter Center

AccuWeather Early Hurricane Center Top Stories Trending Today Astronomy Heat Climate Health Recreation In Memoriam Case Studies Blogs & Webinars

News / Weather News

Scientists have identified an estimated 10% of all species on Earth. Here’s what they found in 2024

A vegetarian piranha was found in Brazil’s Xingu River. Researchers named it after Sauron from "The Lord of the Rings" for the vertical black bar on its flank that resembles the pupil of the villain's fiery eye symbol.

By Katie Hunt, CNN

Published Jan 2, 2025 7:06 AM EDT | Updated Jan 2, 2025 7:06 AM EDT

Copied

A vegetarian piranha named Myloplus sauron was found in Brazil’s Xingu River. Researchers named it after Sauron from "The Lord of the Rings" for the vertical black bar on its flank that resembles the pupil of the villain's fiery eye symbol. (Photo credit: Mark H. Sabaj via CNN Newsource)

Editor's note: Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.

(CNN) — A toothy toadstool. A vegetarian piranha with a distinctive mark. And a pygmy pipehorse floating in the Indian Ocean shallows.

These wild wonders were among the hundreds of previously unknown species of animals, plants and fungi that scientists named and described for the first time in 2024, expanding our surprisingly limited knowledge of Earth’s diversity.

“Scientists estimate that we’ve identified only one-tenth of all species on Earth,” said Dr.
Shannon Bennett, chief of science at the California Academy of Sciences, in a statement.

“While it is critical to place protections on known threatened species, we must also allocate resources towards identifying unknown species that may be just as important to the functioning of an ecosystem,” Bennett said.

Researchers connected to the institution described 138 new species in 2024, including 32 fish. One standout was a pygmy pipehorse named Cylix nkosi. The seahorse relative was originally found in 2021 in the cool temperate waters surrounding the North Island of New Zealand, but the species described this year was discovered in the subtropical waters off South Africa, expanding the known range of this group to the Indian Ocean

“South African reefs present notoriously difficult diving conditions with rough weather and intense, choppy waves — we knew we only had one dive to find it,” underwater photographer and marine biologist Richard Smith said in a statement.

“This species is also quite cryptic, about the size of a golf tee, but luckily we spotted a female camouflaged against some sponges about a mile offshore on the sandy ocean floor.”

The researchers involved in describing the new species chose nkosi as its name. A reference to the local Zulu word for “chief,” the name reflects the species’ crown-like head shape and acknowledges South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province where it was found.

AccuWeather’s Ali Reid counts down the most heroic and heartwarming animal rescues caught on video in 2024, from flash flooding in Connecticut to the aftermath of Hurricane Helene to extreme flooding in Spain

Moth species among new discoveries

The Natural History Museum in London said its researchers had been involved in 190 new discoveries of living and fossilized animals, including 11 new species of moth, eight crabs, four rats and four snakes.

One of the moth species from a genus called Hemiceratoides from Madagascar feeds itself by drinking the tears of sleeping birds, while another newly identified species of moth, Carmenta brachyclado, was found fluttering against a window in a Welsh living room despite its origins in Guyana.

The moth got stuck in a boot belonging to a photographer, who unwittingly brought the insect from South America to her home in Wales, where it emerged. Her daughter, ecologist Daisy Cadet, recognized the creature as something unusual and contacted the Natural History Museum in London.

Another striking find was a vegetarian piranha called Myloplus sauron from Brazil’s Xingu River, said Rupert Collins, a senior curator of fishes at the museum, who helped describe the fish. It was named sauron due to its resemblance to the Eye of Sauron from J.R.R.
Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.”

“The reason we named it this was really a no-brainer because this fish is disc-shaped and has a thin vertical bar across the body, which looks just like an eye,” Collins said in a video shared by the museum.

In addition, in 2024 scientists have documented a mystery mollusk in the deep ocean, a ghost shark, a blob-headed fish, and a type of semi-aquatic mouse.

A ‘race against time’

Among the fascinating finds from scientists at the UK’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew was an intriguing new species of fungi in wooded heathland near the town of Royal Tunbridge Wells, England. Phellodon castaneoleucus sports teeth-like structures instead of the gills usually seen beneath mushroom caps.

Botanists also discovered five new orchid species from sites across the Indonesian archipelago, a gray-stemmed ghost palm from western Borneo with leaves with white undersides, and an enigmatic family of plants known as Afrothismia that are confined to continental African forests without the ability to photosynthesize.

Scientists linked to Kew described 149 new species of plant and 23 species of fungi. The institute said that its annual list of new species is a reminder of the many unknowns waiting to be discovered. No doubt 2025 will bring a fresh list of newly discovered creatures, plants and fungi.

“The sheer privilege of describing a species as new to science is a thrill that not many will ever get to experience,” said Martin Cheek, a senior research leader in the Africa team at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

“Sadly, this delight is increasingly being overshadowed by the many threats that plants face as a direct consequence of human activity,” he said.

“The devastating reality is that more often than not, new species are being found on the brink of extinction and it’s a race against time to find and describe them all.”

Read more:

One of the oldest animals on Earth can fuse with one another
Top 3 animal rescue videos of 2024
‘Bizarre’ blob-headed fish among 27 new species found in Peru

The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Report a Typo

Weather News

Weather News

At least 80 dead in Texas, 11 girls at Camp Mystic missing in flooding

Jul. 6, 2025
video

Rescue operations underway after deadly Texas flooding

Jul. 6, 2025
video

What led to the deadly flooding in central Texas?

Jul. 6, 2025
Severe Weather

Severe weather to rumble in the central US through the holiday weekend

Jul. 6, 2025
Weather News

Record sargassum seaweed piles up on Caribbean islands, Gulf

Jul. 2, 2025
Weather News

Alabama teen in ICU after lightning strike hits boat, causing burns an...

Jul. 2, 2025
Show more Show less Chevron down

Topics

AccuWeather Early

Hurricane Center

Top Stories

Trending Today

Astronomy

Heat

Climate

Health

Recreation

In Memoriam

Case Studies

Blogs & Webinars

Top Stories

Weather News

At least 80 dead in Texas, 11 girls at Camp Mystic missing in flooding

1 hour ago

Hurricane

Chantal moving farther inland after making landfall in South Carolina

3 hours ago

Weather News

Severe weather to storm through Plains, Upper Midwest this week

3 hours ago

Severe Weather

Storms kill 3 in New Jersey, knock out power across Northeast

2 days ago

Weather Forecasts

Heat, humidity return to the East

3 hours ago

More Stories

Featured Stories

Weather News

Wildfires are tearing through a popular tourist hotspot in Greece

2 days ago

Weather News

‘Shark Whisperer’ swims its way into our shark obsession

2 days ago

Travel

Fourth of July gas hasn’t been this cheap since 2021

5 days ago

Weather News

France leads Europe in saying au revoir to beach and park smoking

3 days ago

Health

There is no safe amount of processed meat to eat, new research shows

3 days ago

AccuWeather Weather News Scientists have identified an estimated 10% of all species on Earth. Here’s what they found in 2024
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs AccuWeather Connect RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™ Personal Weather Stations
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs AccuWeather Connect RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™ Personal Weather Stations
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
© 2025 AccuWeather, Inc. "AccuWeather" and sun design are registered trademarks of AccuWeather, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | About Your Privacy Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

...

...

...