Nine new species of animals were discovered in Himachal Pradesh last year, including an insect which has been named after a high school student who spotted it, according to Animal Discoveries 2019, a report released by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) recently.
In Kinnaur’s Sangla valley, an amoeba-like organism named Cyclopyxis leidy earlier known from France and Indonesia was reported for the first time in India. Sangla also reported a new record of another single-celled organism, Assulina quadratum, earlier known from parts of Europe.
Across the country, 368 new animal species were discovered in 2019, including 294 invertebrates and 74 vertebrates. In Kerala, a new fish was named after Gollum, a fictional character from JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, while another one was named Pangio bhujia after the popular Indian snack. A true bug found in Tamil Nadu was named after PM Narendra Modi.
The report said that during the last decade, nearly 2,500 species have been discovered in India, a mega-biodiverse country. The total faunal diversity in India now comprises around 1.02 lakh species which is 6.5 per cent of the global diversity