Caught in My Web: Funky "New" Species

Image by Luc Viatour at Wikimedia.

Given the rate of extinction of creatures great and small, you may be surprised to learn that we discover about 18,000 new species every year! For this edition of Caught in My Web, we explore some of these new-to-us species.

1. Jessica Schmerler explains how animals are classified and named and has a fun slideshow of 2014's top 10 interesting animals at Scientific American.

2. Jane Lee at National Geographic talks about a newly discovered deep sea anglerfish with big teeth, spikes on its snout and a crazy-looking lure on the top of its head!

3. Justine Alford at IFLScience! shows us a newly discovered species of peacock spider.

The male dons a blue mask is is about as cuddly as a spider gets. Check out his dance here:

4. Stephanie Pappas at livescience shows us an adorable newly discovered jelly-bean sized masked frog.

5. Against conventional wisdom, a newly discovered species of frogs gives birth to live young! Dr. Dolittle at ScienceBlogs tells us all about it.