It’s hard to find a single segment of society that has not been significantly impacted by Covid-19. The economic and social destruction caused by the pandemic will last for years, decades even, and entire industries have had to reorient themselves to the “new normal.”
Field research in biodiversity is certainly no exception. In many places, projects have been put on hold, researchers grounded, and funding reduced. In some respects, studying wildlife has been more severely impacted than laboratory research. Simply put, you can’t discover and understand new species without being there, hiking through jungles, wading through rivers or climbing mountains.
The long-term impact of Covid-19 on field research will be felt in later years. For now, here in the Greater Mekong region comprising Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam, species continue being discovered at a remarkable pace. As a new WWF-Greater Mekong report details, an impressive 224 new species of plants, fishes, amphibians, reptiles and mammals were discovered or described in 2020.
This brings the total number of vascular plants and vertebrates described in the Greater Mekong since 1997 to 3,007, highlighting why this region is considered a global hotspot for biodiversity. And not only are they important for science and ecological health, but they also inspire wonder in young and old alike.
Take the orange-brown knobby newt (above) with devil horns and a racing stripe that was discovered in Thailand. Researchers originally observed it by chance in a 20-year-old photograph from a travel magazine and set out to confirm its existence in the field.
Then there’s the popa langur, a leaf-eating monkey named after Myanmar’s revered Mount Popa, close to where it was found. First identified in a 100-year-old museum specimen in the UK, the researchers estimate only 200-250 individuals remain in the wild.
Another species in the report is a pungent ginger plant that was discovered in a plant shop in eastern Thailand and is often used as a substitute for stink bugs in a popular chili paste.
With more than 3,000 new species described in the past 24 years, the Greater Mekong region is no doubt a world heavyweight contender for species discoveries.
These species are extraordinary, beautiful products of millions of years of evolution, but are under intense threat, with many species going extinct even before they are described. They require our greatest respect, utmost attention, and urgent actions to protect their habitats and minimize exploitation.
These newly discovered species are at risk from habitat destruction, pollution and diseases spread by human activities, predation and competition brought by invasive species, and the devastating impacts of illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade.
That certainly includes Vietnam’s and Cambodia’s big-headed frog – Leptobrachium lunatum (above) – which faces a challenging future due to ongoing deforestation of its habitat and harvesting of its tadpoles for food.
The dark-purple Zug’s odd-scaled snake is similarly threatened by highly fragmented and degraded forests caused by logging, agricultural expansion, housing development and limestone quarrying.
And grazing pressure from livestock is infringing on the habitat of the the long-snouted kukri snake, which has a unique bright-orange underside and a special jaw that’s designed for eating eggs.
As Thomas Ziegler, curator for herpetology, ichthyology and invertebrates with the Zoological Garden Cologne, notes in the foreword of the report: “The Covid-19 crisis has made it very clear that humans cannot intervene in nature, its networks, food chains and biodiversity with impunity.”
Covid-19 proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that field researchers are the unsung heroes of our planet. It should come as no surprise, though, since even under normal circumstances they can face brutal weather, swarming insects, threats of disease, and snake bites, all to help ensure that life on Planet Earth is sustained for future generations.
As Ziegler notes, “We must all learn to be more careful and co-exist with all the other creatures on our planet, instead of just exploiting and extirpating them.”