Weird and wonderful new species found around the Mekong
Updated
It's nice to know that the world is still full of nice surprises - even if they are a hot pink cyanide-squirting millipede and a hairy spider as big as a dinner plate.
They're among 1000 weird and wonderful species that scientists have found in the greater Mekong Region of South East Asia. The scientists, part of a group commissioned by the conservation group, W-W-F say the surprising biodiversity in Vietnam, Laos, China, Cambodia, Burma and Thailand needs to be better protected.
Presenter: Karen Barlow
Speaker: Stuart Chapman, the World Wildlife Fund
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STUART CHAPMAN: It actually works out at two new species a week and I don't know of anywhere else in the world that has that rate of discovery. And it ranges from large fury mammals to large hairy spiders and none of them were found under a microscope.
KAREN BARLOW: Very large hairy spider, a leg span of 30 centimetres; where was this hiding?
STUART CHAPMAN: Yeah unfortunate for somebody and they were looking in caves Laos and they saw this huge spider and didn't realise it was a new species.
KAREN BARLOW: And a hot pink cyanide producing millipede.
STUART CHAPMAN: Well yes it's almost like we're making it up. It just doesn't sound possible and that's what's so exiting, I mean this report just shows the wealth of biodiversity that's been discovered here.
I mean the other one is that's just kind of equally surprising for me is that a new species of Pit Viper but it wasn't found as the millipedes were found in the field. There was a reptile expert, he was having lunch in the national park and he looked up in the rafters and there was this snake that he'd never seen before.
KAREN BARLOW: So 1,000 new species, why has no one documented this area or the species in this area before?
STUART CHAPMAN: There's two or three good reasons. Probably the top two are that some of these areas are incredibly remote and scientists are only just getting into them; the second one is that there are incredibly rich habitats here. The Mekong River that runs through this area is in biodiversity terms, second only after the Amazon in terms of richness of species.
KAREN BARLOW: What's the danger for these species? Is humanity creeping into their homes?
STUART CHAPMAN: Civilisation has been living here for a very long time and people of old knew why this land was so good. I mean it's a very fertile land and it's also a land that's very rich in wild sources of food, of medicine and of wildlife. There is change going on here, there's rapid economic development, but the trick here is to make sure that you have your cake and eat it, you can have development and it will be sustainable if you can have good environment planning and that's what really needs to happen.
