Monday, December 15, 2008

Greater Mekong's species spectacle

Monday, 15 December 2008
BBC News

Conservation group WWF says that more than 1,000 species new to science have been recorded in South-East Asia's Greater Mekong region over the past decade. These include 22 snake species, including this green pitviper (Trimeresurus gumprechti).
The "dragon millipede" (Desmoxytes purpurosea) was first described in 2007 by scientists in Thailand. Researchers suggest the bright colouring acts as a warning to would-be predators, as the millipede has glands that produce cyanide as a defence mechanism.
The Laotian rock rat (Laonastes aenigmamus) was first recorded by scientists at a food market in Laos. Remarkably, researchers say this species is the sole survivor of an ancient group of rodents understood to have died out 11 million years ago.
The large and aggressive Heteropoda dagmarae was found in forests of northern and central Laos. The nocturnal spider skillfully ambushes its prey from shrubs, trees, or bamboo between two and four metres from the ground.
Tree frog Chiromantis samkosensis, found in Cambodia, has a number of unique characteristics that distinguishes from other Asian Chiromantis species, including green blood and turquoise bones.
Scientists say finding so many species, such as the Gekko scientiadventura, suggests that many more creatures are still to be described in the region, which covers Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and China's Yunnan province.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

these creatures are commonly found in cambodia. the green venomous snake above is called hanuman snake in khmer and can jump from tree to tree.

Anonymous said...

yES AND THE LITTLE FROG CALL KANCHAGN CHEK KDIEP! CAN FIND IN THE SONG!

Anonymous said...

you guy should seen eye doctor! that green sneak..is really HUN KWANG!

Anonymous said...

3:29AM you should recheck your head, the snake is god creature sent to bring Hun Xen to meet Hok landy!

Anonymous said...

I love them all as long as they don't craw on me :) The Rock rat look very interesting... almost like squirrel. Cambodia has real potential to becoming a country of biodiversity to draw more scientists and tourists to our country. I would love to see we put Cambodia on the world map for it. There are plenty of other potential to expand. Preserving nature and animals in the natural habitat is a invaluable chance that a lot of countries to do not have. I wish we would learn to extract the values from our natural endowments.

Anonymous said...

yes, cambodia welcomes all the scientists and educators to our country to study about nature, ancient khmer civilization and so on. i can't wait to see cambodia's first national geopgraphic magazine in khmer. i noted thailand has one, why not cambodia as well. we, khmer people are very eager to learn about nature like wild animals, trees, plants, the environment, the natural resoursces, the mighty mekong river, and of course our very own great lake, the huge tonle sap lake of cambodia and its thousands of fresh water fishes and other aquatic creatures that god ever made. god bless cambodia.

Anonymous said...

In order to maintain these creatures we must not destroy natures such as trees lobbing and build any damps that would interrupt the flow of the Mekong River. Most of all control the pollution.

Anonymous said...

all will be extinct under Yuon government. Good luck