We know a lot about the Earth and its creatures, but never everything. The State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry, in Syracuse, has compiled a list of the top 10 new species discovered in 2018, which includes a rare great ape, hitchhiking beetle, omnivorous marsupial lion thought-to-be-extinct and other species that are critically endangered.

Quentin Wheeler, college president and founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration, says, “As humans alter habitats and contribute to global climate change, species are going extinct at a faster rate than we can name them. They can teach us so much about the intricacies of ecosystems and the details of evolutionary history.”

This article appears in the December 2018 issue of Natural Awakenings.