Hidden in plain sight: the race to discover new species before they’re gone

By Jane Younger, Senior Lecturer in Southern Ocean Vertebrate Ecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania

When most people imagine scientists discovering new species, they probably still picture an expedition into the unknown.

A naturalist travels somewhere remote, perhaps on a wooden ship, and traipses through the jungle to encounter an animal or plant never before described by science. The intrepid explorer brings back specimens or observations to a museum, where they can be compared, named and described.

There is some truth to this stereotype. Between 1854 and 1862, scientist Alfred Russel Wallace…

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