Asian Small-Clawed Otter
The Asian Small-Clawed Otter has not been seen in 185 years! It was discovered (again) in Nepal, in 2021. This adorable otter is the smallest otter of the 13 species that have been discovered, and it lives in India’s Darjeeling area. People were very happy to find these otters because the rivers in Nepal are not good. Only 1% of the Earth’s surface is covered with freshwater ecosystems, but 10% of the animals live in those environments.
Semi-Aquatic Mouse
Even though Semi-Aquatic Mice have been around for a while, a new species was discovered in Peru during 2022. These mice are adapted to live near water, so some even have webbed feet! Interestingly, these mice have relatively large brains. They use their brains to process all the sensory information being sent from their long whiskers.
Skeleton Panda Sea Squirt
Roughly 2 centimeters, the Skeleton Panda Sea Squirt looks exactly like how it sounds. It’s a sea squirt that looks like a skeleton and has the markings of a panda! You might be asking: hat is a sea squirt? A sea squirt is a filter animal that lives in the ocean. It lives in saltwater, and this species of sea squirts lives in the waters off the coast of Kumejima, Japan. It was discovered in 2017.
Clouded Tiger Cat
In January of 2024, scientists discovered a new species of tiger cat in Central and South America. The Clouded Tiger cats live in high-altitude cloud forests and are about the size of a house cat. They join the Northern and Southern Tiger Cats as the third species in the Ocelot family. Due to their small size and elusiveness, it is incredibly difficult to identify the different species.
Van Gogh’s Starry Dwarf Gecko
Van Gogh’s Starry Dwarf Gecko looks like the famous painting “Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh. It was discovered in 2022, and features a beautiful yellow and blue pattern. This amazing gecko was found in the Srivilliputhur-Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu in India. These dwarf geckos are small, only reaching about 2.6 inches in length.
Vampire Hedgehog
Discovered in Vietnam, you may be surprised by this hedgehog’s interesting look. It looks more like a cross between a mouse and a shrew rather than an actual hedgehog. It measures 14 cm wide and is nocturnal. Its scientific name is Hylomys macarong, which means “vampire” in Vietnamese. This fuzzy creature was first photographed in 2009, but was overlooked and wasn’t declared its own species until 2024. That’s 15 years a specimen has sat in a dusty archive box. Now to the fangs! Only males have fangs, and scientists don’t yet know what they’re for.
