Over 1.5 million species of animals have been described and every year some 15,000 or more species are named. Species are unevenly distributed in the world and the 17 megadiverse countries have far more species than others. Where are new species discovered and described?
Dr. Dong Liu et al. answered this question for recent years by surveying new mite species described in the last six years, and selected the Acari which is a very diverse group in the Phylum Arthropoda (over 55,000 described species). The new species are distributed unevenly among 150 mite families, the top 15 families accounted for 55% of all the species, and 86 of the 150 families have 1–3 species each. The top family is the Eriophyidae, which alone accounted for nearly 15% of the total new species. Geographically, the new species were described from 92 countries and their distribution among these countries is highly uneven. The top 10 countries accounted for 62% of all the new species and the top country, China, alone accounted for 18% of the total. The average number of new species per country is 15 and no more than a fifth of the countries are above the average, and 40% of the countries have only 1–3 new species each. The top country for each continent is China (248 species) for Asia, Australia (166 species) for Oceania, Brazil (76 species) for South America, Kenya (51 species) for Africa, USA (51 species) for North America and Russia (42 species) for Europe. Increased efforts in discovering and describing new species are much needed for biodiversity-rich countries in South America, Southeast Asia and Africa. Obviously, China has become one of the most hot spots in discovery of new mite species.
Monograph
Dong Liu, Tian-Ci Yi, Yun Xu & Zhi-Qiang Zhang. 2013. Hotspots of new species discovery: new mite species described during 2007 to 2012. Magnolia Press, Auckland, 102 pp.