Vampire urchin, pygmy seahorse, spothead fish among new species identified in 2024.

Vampire urchin, pygmy seahorse and spotted head fish were among hundreds of new species identified in 2024.

The variety of species identified was quite eclectic, with names for new species spanning a wide range of locations and formations — some even inspired by politicians or celebrities.

A new species of plant bug is named after Vice President Kamala Harris (P. kamalaharrisae) and another after Harrison Ford (P. harrisonfordi) for their commitment to climate and conservation science, said California Academy of Sciences researcher Brad Balukjian, who introduced 17 new species to Pseudoloxops a family from French Polynesia.

Actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio had a new species of snake named after him. Researchers discovered a small copper-colored snake in the Himalayas and named the species Anguiculus dicaprioi.

Locations where scientists have discovered these species have included Peru, the Ecuadorian Amazon, and the Greater Mekong region of southern Asia. California Academy of Sciences they said their scientists had made a discovery across six continents and three oceans, leading to the description of 138 new animal, plant and fungal species.

“Finding and describing new species is critical to understanding our planet’s biodiversity and protecting it from further loss,” said virologist Shannon Bennett, director of science at the California Academy of Sciences.

The number of new species identified in 2024 cannot be added up or determined by a single list. Researchers present their findings in various papers, at conferences and in the scientific community. Inclusion is a tricker because discoveries can be made by anyone, anywhere, except by describing and identifying a new species it requires a scientific process.

This process involves studying and analyzing the new specimen and similar organisms, and then assigning a new name to the species. A species may be discovered but not necessarily described until years later.

Bennett told CBS News that when scientists describe a new species, they liken it to “a ball coming out.” For the first time, Bennett said, the species has been correctly identified and finally has a place in the world.

Nonetheless, Bennett said that “scientists estimate that we have identified only about one-tenth of all species on Earth.”

Here are some of the highlights of 2024.

Vampire hedgehog, a hedgehog with soft fur and “fang-like teeth”

According to WWF report234 species have been identified this year in the Greater Mekong region, which includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

He was among them Hylomys macaronghedgehog vampire. A hedgehog with soft fur and fang-like teeth inspired its scientific name. The word Ma cà rồng means “vampire” in Vietnamese.

First photographed in 2009 in the wild in Vietnam by a team from a Russian-Vietnamese research center, the vampire hedgehog was identified as a new species as part of an international effort to revise the taxonomy of smaller gymnurs, WWF said.

The specimens that helped describe the vampire hedgehog were housed in the Smithsonian, researcher Arlo Hinckley told WWF. He stressed the importance of maintaining collected samples from “poorly sampled regions” so that the “next generation” of researchers would make new discoveries that may have been overlooked.

A small horse, found off the coast of South Africa

Researchers from the California Academy of Sciences knew they might discover something new after local divers in South Africa’s Sodwana Bay told them about an unknown species. But scientists were worried they wouldn’t be able to spot the tiny pygmy horse – about the size of a golf ball.

“South Africa’s reefs present notoriously difficult diving conditions with bad weather and intense, choppy waves — we knew we only had one dive to find it,” said scientist and study co-author Richard Smith in a news release earlier this month.

Ali Smith and Graham Short — the scientist who originally described the pygmy horse genus Cylix in 2021 — are unwavering, according to the academy. Originally, the pygmy horse was found in the cold temperate waters surrounding the North Island of New Zealand. The discovery of a new species in subtropical waters has expanded the range of the group.

“Luckily we spotted a female camouflaged against some sponges about a mile offshore on the sandy ocean floor,” Smith said in a press release.

They named the new species pygmy horse C. nkosiafter the local Zulu word for “chief,” the academy said.

Spotted head fish baffles researchers

Among the eight new species of fish identified in Peru’s Alto Mayor region this year, the most shocking was the “spotted head fish,” according to report published this month by the non-profit group Conservation International.

In the summer of 2022, researchers with the group’s Rapid Assessment Program conducted a biological survey of a largely unexplored area in the central Alto Maya region and discovered what were later determined to be at least 27 species new to science and 49 species threatened with extinction, according to IUCN Red List.

Among those who were new was a “fish with a spotted head” in Chaetostoma genus, which includes the bristly armored catfish. The team’s fish scientists had never seen a fish with an enlarged head like the blob, Conservation International said.

“The function of this unusual structure remains a mystery,” the researchers said in a statement.

However, the species was already known to the indigenous Awajun people working with the Rapid Assessment Program, the researchers said.