Wednesday

A Himalayan treasure trove, Stunning new wildlife discoveries in the eastern Himalaya

http://www.nepalitimes.com.np/issue/2009/08/26/Headline/16249

Combine the earth's most rugged mountain region with the highest rainfall of any place on the planet and a high-altitude desert, and what do you have? The area with the world's greatest bio-diversity.

That is the eastern Himalaya encompassing parts of Nepal, Tibet, Myanmar, India and Bhutan where 353 new animal and plant species have been discovered over the last decade. The discovery highlights the area's isolation, but also its fragility. Habitat destruction, and now climate change, threaten this Himalayan treasure trove.

Of the 353 discoveries 242 are plants, 16 amphibians, 16 reptiles, 14 fish, two birds, two mammals and at least 61 invertebrates. Among the more surprising of these news finds is the Macaca munzala, the first new monkey species discovered in over a century, sighted in Assam.