Episode 314: Animals Discovered in 2022

Strange Animals Podcast

Let's learn about some of the animals discovered in 2022! There are lots, so let's go! Further Reading: In Japanese waters, a newly described anemone lives on the back of a hermit crab Rare ‘fossil’ clam discovered alive Marine Biologists Discover New Giant Isopod Mysterious ‘blue goo’ at the bottom of the sea stumps scientists New Species of Mossy Frog Discovered in Vietnam A Wildlife YouTuber Discovered This New Species of Tarantula in Thailand Meet Nepenthes pudica, Carnivorous Plant that Produces Underground Traps Scientists discover shark graveyard at the bottom of the ocean Further Watching: JoCho Sippawat's YouTube channel A newly discovered sea anemone (photo by Akihiro Yoshikawa): A mysterious blue blob seen by a deep-sea rover: A newly discovered frog: A newly discovered tarantula (photo by JoCho Sippawat): Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. It’s the 2022 discoveries episode, where we learn about some of the animals discovered in 2022! Most of the time these animals were actually discovered by scientists before 2022, but the description was published in that year so that’s when we first learned about them. And, of course, a lot of these animals were already known to the local people but had never been studied by scientists before. There are lots of animals in the world but not that many scientists. The great thing is, so many animals get discovered in any given year that I have to pick and choose the ones I think listeners will find most interesting, which in a stunning coincidence turns out to be the ones that I personally find most interesting. Funny how that works out. We’ll start in the ocean, which is full of weird animals that no human has ever seen before. It’s about a hermit crab who carries a friend around. The hermit crab was already known to science, but until a team of scientists observed it in its natural habitat, the deep sea off the Pacific coast of Japan, no one realized it had an anemone friend. The sea anemone is related to jellyfish and is a common animal throughout the world’s oceans. Some species float around, some anchor themselves to a hard surface. Many species have developed a symbiotic relationship with other animals, such as the clownfish, which is sometimes called the anemonefish because it relies on the anemone to survive. Anemones sting the way jellyfish do, but it doesn’t sting the clownfish. Researchers aren’t sure why not, but it may have something to do with the clownfish’s mucus coating. Specifically, the mucus may have a particular taste that the anemone recognizes as belonging to a friend. If the anemone does accidentally sting the clownfish, it’s still okay because the fish is generally immune to the anemone’s toxins. The clownfish lives among the anemone’s tentacles, which protects it from predators, and in return its movements bring more oxygen to the anemone by circulating water through its tentacles, its droppings provide minerals to the anemone, and because the clownfish is small and brightly colored, it might even attract predators that the anemone can catch and eat. Anemones also develop mutualistic relationships with other organisms, including a single-celled algae that lives in its body and photosynthesizes light into energy. The algae has a safe place to live while the anemone receives some of the energy from the algae’s photosynthesis. But some species of anemone have a relationship with crabs, including this newly discovered anemone. The anemone anchors itself to the shell that the hermit crab lives in. The crab gains protection from predators, who would have to go through the stinging tentacles and the shell to get to the crab, while the anemone gets carried to new places where it can find more food. It also gathers up pieces of food that the crab scatters while eating, because crabs are messy eaters. The problem is that hermit crabs have to move into bigger shells...