In spite of Covid-19, last year saw the description of several hundred new species of plants and animals. The image above (click to zoom) shows four of them.
Top left: The Yoknapatawpha darter, Etheostoma faulkneri (male shown above female) is found only in the Yocona River of Mississippi. It was recently distinguished from the closely related Etheostoma raneyi found in nearby rivers.
Top right: Dendropsophus bilobatus (image credit M. Ferrão, J. Moravec, J. Hanken, A.P. Lima) is a small Bolivian tree frog distinguished by the shape of its vocal sac and its characteristic mating call.
Bottom left: Platylestes kirani (male only shown; image credit Rison Thumboor) is a damselfly from the coastal wetlands of Kerala, South India.
Bottom right: The northern Western Ghats vine snake, Ahaetulla borealis (image credit Geoish) is a tree snake from the Western Ghats of India. It was declared to be a species in its own right after a subdivision of Ahaetulla nasuta.
Scientific Gems 