New animal species discovered in South Africa

New animal species discovered in South Africa
As more and more animal species are threatened with extinction around the world, scientists have discovered a number of new animal species in South Africa's Western Cape province.

These new species, some of which are yet to be named, were discovered in the past five years in the province, according to the latest edition of CapeNature.

Among the species are chameleons, frogs, lizards and fish, including the Karoo rock elephant-shrew, the Swartberg dwarf chameleon and the rough moss frog, the journal said in its biodiversity review.

"We know that the Cape Floral Region has levels of plant diversity that are normally associated with tropical rainforests," said Kas Hamman, CapeNature's executive director of biodiversity.

"With new research we discovered that not just plants but also animal diversity, including invertebrates, lizards and frogs, is much higher than originally thought," he added.

Andrew Turner, scientific manager at CapeNature said they still needed to assess the conservation status of the new species.

"Most of the species live in small ranges and may have been overlooked in the past," he said.

Because of this, there was no specific figure about exactly how many new species had been found, Turner said.

According to the 2004 Global Amphibian Assessment (GAA) which assessed every known species of amphibian, nearly a third of all species were threatened with extinction.

Editor: Xiong Tong

English.news.cn   2011-11-16 10:04:40 FeedbackPrintRSS
CAPE TOWN, Nov. 15 (Xinhua)