New Dinosaur: Titanic Triceratops Ancestor?

Meet what could be the new granddaddy of horned dinosaurs—Titanoceratops.

At 15,000-pound (6,800-kilogram) the prehistoric titan would have rivaled theAfrican elephant-sizeTriceratops, which weighed more than 11,000 pounds (5,000 kilograms), according to a new analysis of a partial skeleton.

The beast—which had an 8-foot-long (2.4-meter-long) skull—is the biggest dinosaur found so far in North America during the lateCretaceous period,about 74 million years ago.

(Read about anotherTriceratopsancestor found in Canada.)

If indeed a new species,Titanoceratops'discovery could also mean that triceratopsins—members of a family of giant horned dinosaurs—evolved their gigantic sizes evolved at least five million years earlier than previously thought, the study says.

Triceratopswould have evolved into a separate species afterTitanoceratopshad died out, according to the study.

"It's pretty surprising—I would have not have thought something this big and this advanced was living in this time period,"said study leaderNicholas Longrich, a paleontologist at Yale University.

But other experts say the skeleton is not complete enough to call it a new species.

"I would like it to be real,"saidMichael Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

"{But} until we find a better specimen ... there's no reason to say it isn't aPentaceratops,"a similar type of horned dinosaur.

A More"Graceful"Triceratops?

The partial skeleton was found inNew Mexicoin 1941 and stored until 1995, when it was reexamined and identified as an"exceptionally large"Pentaceratops, according to the study.

But when study leader Longrich recently looked at the skeleton, he found 20 physical differences between the skeleton andPentaceratops.

For instance, many of these disparities are"classic"Triceratopsfeatures—such as the shape of the nose and monstrous, forward-curving horns. This suggested to him that the animal was notPentaceratops, but rather a newTriceratopsancestor. (See more pictures of dinosaurs that lived during the Cretaceous.)

Titanoceratops,Longrich said, would have looked like a more"graceful"version ofTriceratops, with a longer nose, slightly bigger horns, and a thinner frill—a fan-like bone covering its neck.

Another convincing piece of evidence to Longrich is the specimen's size: It was twice as big as any knownPentaceratops, of which there are about six good specimens.

"In my opinion there are far too many differences for this to be anotherPentaceratops,"he said.

Dinosaur Skeleton Missing Key Indicators?

But the Cleveland museum's Ryan said that the skeleton doesn't look that different fromPentaceratops.

For one thing, he said, many of the 20 differences outlined by Longrich are not diagnostic, and that they don't reveal for sure that the animal is another species.

For another, he said, the incomplete specimen is missing the most crucial part of a horned dinosaur, at least for paleontologists' research: the back of the frill.

"That's where most of the key characters for horned dinosaurs are included,"he said.

"The frill would be very helpful, since the parts of it illustrated don't seem to me to be outside the probable variation inPentaceratops."

For instance, Ryan suspects the specimen may just be a particularly elderly—and thus bigger—Pentaceratops, which are usually difficult to find in the fossil record simply because older dinosaurs were rarer.

But study co-author Longrich said that there are at least two known specimens of elderlyPentaceratopsthat are a lot smaller than, and do not resemble, what he believes isTitanoceratops.

(See"Two New Horned Dinosaurs Found in Utah.")

Longrich added,"The fact that we're missing part of the frill is a little annoying, but it doesn't really affect things that much."

"And we actually have some pieces of the frill, and they don't really look much likePentaceratops."

New Dinosaur"Reasonable Possibility"

Overall, the"great bane"of paleontology is finding out why there's variation in a sample,Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Maryland, said via email.

For instance, with so few horned-dinosaur specimens, it's hard to tell if an odd fossil represents a variation within a species' growth, due to regional differences, or between sexes—or because the fossil actually represents a distinct species.

But Longrich's hypothesis that the skeleton represents a new type of dinosaur—and not just a"big ass"Pentaceratops—is"certainly a reasonable possibility,"said Holtz, who was not part of the new research.

"After all,Triceratopsmust have had ancestors in this earlier time, and this individual does show specialized traits that we see in theTriceratopscomplex."

Meanwhile, study leader Longrich hopes another dinosaur will be found with a more intact frill."I would love to see another one—that would be the nail in the coffin."

Titanoceratopsresearch to appear in an upcoming issue of the journalCretaceous Research.

National Geographic News

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Oil Markets Churn Over Egypt's Potential as Gateway for Revolt

This story is part of aspecial seriesthat explores energy issues. For more, visitThe Great Energy Challenge.

World oil prices were trading at their highest level in three years this week amid the revolt in Egypt, which for decades served as a major petroleum transit route. But energy analysts believe the real risk is not a closure of the desert conduits—the Suez Canal and the Sumed Pipeline—but that the unrest gripping Cairo will spread to neighboring nations.

"The whole Arab world is watching what is happening in Egypt,"said James Burkhard, managing director of the global energy consulting firm,IHS CERA."It is adding a new layer of anxiety about the Middle East, which is the most important oil-producing region in the world."

The price of oilreached more than $100 a barrelthis week for the first time since 2008, based on the benchmark Brent contract, which is widely used in Europe and Asia. In the United States, the benchmark price stayed lower, about $92 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and was falling off slightly from last week.

Each dollar increase in the price of oil translates to roughly a 2.4-cent-per-gallon (0.6-cent-per-liter) hike in the price of fuel, although many other market conditions affect the actual price that consumers pay at the pump.Bloggersand some analysts have focused on the risk of oil shock posed by a potential closure of Egypt'sSuez Canal, the 142-year-old man-made waterway linking the Mediterranean and the Red seas. But energy experts say the oil market is concerned about Egypt not as a commodity route, but as a gateway to further political instability.

Historic Highway of Oil

Egypt itself is not a world oil supplier; its 80 million people consume roughly all of the oil the nation produces. But its 120-mile (193-kilometer) Suez Canal for years served as a vitally important passageway for oil.

Of course, that was not the case in its early history, when the canal linked Britain and France with their far-flung empires; the canal opened in 1869 when ships still made their way through the passage by sail.

(Seeancient Egypt pictures, stories, and morefromNational Geographicmagazine.)

But in 1948, just as India won its independence from Great Britain, the canal gained a new role,"not as a highway of empire, but of oil,"recounts Daniel Yergin, co-founder and chairman of IHS CERA, in his Pulitzer-Prize winning history of the industry,The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power. By 1955, Yergin writes, oil accounted for two-thirds of all canal traffic and two-thirds of Europe's oil passed through it. Its strategic importance kicked off the Suez Crisis—an attack on Egypt by Great Britain, France, and Israel—after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the waterway in 1956.

That crisis was resolved in part due to pressure from the United States, which opposed the attack, and deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force. But the impact on the petroleum markets reverberated.

Over the years, the market moved to larger and larger oil tankers; although they could not make it through the canal and had to make the 6,000-mile (9,700-kilometer) trip around the tip of Africa to markets of the West, they could make up for lost time by moving bigger shipments of cargo.

The Suez Canal closed for eight years after the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab states in 1967—costing the world an estimated $12 billion in higher shipping costs, or $49 billion in today's dollars. As the canal was set to reopen in June 1975,National Geographicrecounted how"the waterway had become a giant slag heap of war—blocked by scuttled and sunken ships, strewn with unexploded ammunition, abandoned by more than a million Egyptians who had fled their homes along its banks and occupied on either side by mortal enemies."

("New Life for the Troubled Suez Canal,"June 1975, available on DVD,The Complete National Geographic)

In addition to sweeping the canal for explosives, a dangerous endeavor in which at least 100 lives were lost, Egyptian officials worked to deepen and widen the canal to reclaim lost traffic. They noted at the time that tankers had grown so large that only one in four could make it through the Suez.

Today, only 16 percent of the cargo that passes through the canal is oil. Analysts estimate that between 600,000 barrels and 1 million barrels per day flow north through the canal. The Sumed Pipeline, which runs parallel to the Suez, carries a greater volume from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean—between 1 million and 2 million barrels per day.

In recent years, the Suez Canal has also become an important transitway for shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG), but global supplies are considered to be strong enough to handle any hold-ups or stoppage in shipping.

As for oil, Burkhard of IHS CERA notes that the world has 5 million barrels per day of spare oil production capacity. Saudi Arabia alone, with 3.5 million to 4 million barrels per day of spare capacity, can ramp up to replace all of the oil shipped through the Suez and Sumed together, should either conduit face a disruption.

And in any case, Egypt serves as a passage for just a fraction of the 15 million to 17 million barrels per day of oil shipped out of the Persian Gulf. TheU.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)notes that volumes in both the canal and the pipeline have been declining. Piracy and security concerns around the Horn of Africa where cargo ships must travel to reach the Suez Canal have led some exportersto travel the extra distancearound South Africa to reach western markets, EIA notes. And many shipments also are headed in the other direction to the Far East.

Does Oil Wealth Immunize?

The greater concern is the risk of"contagion,"said Kevin Book of Clearview Energy Partners LLC in Washington, D.C., who sees certain Arab countries at great risk of upheaval: those with high unemployment, low per-capita GDP, a low median age and a relatively low level of active military troops. Book said Yemen stands out among Egypt's neighbors as a nation at risk for spread of revolt, with a per capita GDP of $2,600—far lower than Egypt's $6,200—and an unemployment rate of about 35 percent (compared to Egypt's stated rate of 10 percent).

Although Yemen produces even less oil than Egypt, it also is considered a potential choke point for oil transit, at the Strait of Bab al Mandab where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden. Book said that any constraint on traffic there wouldn't mean a"supply meltdown,"but higher prices for oil products.

But it is an open question whether revolt will spread to the monarchies and emirates that make up the large oil-producing nexus of the Persian Gulf. The biggest producer, Saudi Arabia, has a slightly higher unemployment rate than Egypt—at 11 percent. But the Kingdom's GDP per capita is about 4 times higher ($24,200). Paul Tossetti, senior energy adviser at the consulting firmPFC Energy, says oil wealth creates a fundamentally different picture for people living in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait.

"They have so much money they have been able to give their populations a bit more of a future than the highly populated countries that have very little in the way of oil,"like Egypt, he says. He says PFC Energy views a spread of unrest to the Middle East oil kingdoms unlikely,"but that doesn't mean you won't see a demonstration here and there."

(SeePictures: Ancient Egyptian Artifacts Damaged in Looting)

(SeeEgypt Treasures Looted, But Public Strikes Back)

ForNational Geographic News

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New Pictures Show"Uncontacted" Tribe"Well and Strong"

Famouslyphotographed aiming arrows at a passing aircraft two years ago, an"uncontacted"tribe inBrazil'sAcre state (map)appears thriving and healthy in  new pictures—the most detailed yet of the Amazon group—experts say.

Though referred to as uncontacted, the Indians—pictured by a palm-leaf hut—are thought to have had limited interaction with outsiders but prefer to remain isolated, according to José Carlos Meirelles, the Indian-affairs specialist who led the team that took the new pictures in April 2010. (See"'Uncontacted' Tribe Actually Known for Decades.")

Released this week by the international indigenous-rights groupSurvival International, the images were captured from about three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) away during an annual monitoring flight organized by the Brazilian government.

In keeping with federal policy, the team did not make direct contact, for fear of introducing diseases or harming the tribe's environment and culture.

"They always get scared when they see an aircraft, but this tribe is used to seeing commercial flights—Boeings and local jets—flying over the region,"said the newly retired Meirelles, who for 40 years worked for FUNAI, Brazil's indigenous-rights agency.

"I prefer to get them scared once a year—and make sure they are healthy, growing in number, and protected from loggers and miners—rather than leave them without any supervision."

The isolated tribe's land, especially on the other side of the nearby Peruvian border, is much sought after for its lumber, oil, minerals, natural gas, and hydroelectric and farming potential.

In the face of increasing illegal logging, pictures like these are vital to safeguarding indigenous land rights, Meirelles said, given that politicians in both Brazil andPeruhave disputed that such isolated tribes even exist.

(Also see"Five 'Uncontacted Tribes' Most Threatened With Extinction.")

—Sabrina Valle in Rio de Janeiro

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Groundhog Day 2011: Punxsutawney Phil Sees No Shadow

"The sky is clear. Prepare for warmth!"With those rousing words Wednesday morning, the world's most famousgroundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, offered a ray of hope to millions of Americans being buffeted by a monster winter storm.(SeeGroundhog Day pictures.)

By seeing no shadow as he emerged from his ceremonial burrow in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, on Groundhog Day 2011, Phil, according to tradition, is said to have predicted an early spring.

"Groundhog Day is a lot like a rock concert, but the people are better behaved and there's a groundhog involved,"Tom Chapin, editor of thePunxsutawney Spiritnewspaper, told National Geographic News last Groundhog Day eve.

"There's music and entertainment, spoofs of game shows, and people shooting t-shirts and Beanie Babies"into the crowd, he said.

Legend has it that if Punxsutawney Phil emerges from his temporary burrow—a simulated tree stump at the rural site of Gobbler's Knob—on February 2 and sees his shadow, winter weather will continue for six more weeks across theUnited States. But if Phil doesn't see his shadow, then spring temperatures are just around the corner.

Regardless of the weather prediction, on Groundhog Day, Phil"speaks"to his human caretakers, known as the Inner Circle, in Groundhogese and tells them his forecast. The Inner Circle then translates Phil's words for the world to hear—or so they say. (Related:"Groundhog Sees More Winter Ahead"{2006}.)

On Groundhog Day 2011,"immortal"Punxsutawney Phil—supposedly born no later than the 19th century—got his message out in some decidedly 21st-century ways, by texting his forecast (to sign up, text"groundhog"to 247365) and, of course, updating hisFacebook statusand the Pennsylvania-tourismTwitter feed.

(Related:"No Winter by 2105? Study Offers Grim Forecast for U.S.")

Video: Wild Groundhog in"Action"

Groundhog Day Origins

According to the officialPunxsutawney Phil Groundhog DayWeb site, Groundhog Day is the result of a blend of ancient Christian and Roman customs that came together in Germany.

In the early days of Christianity in Europe, clergy would distribute blessed candles to the faithful on February 2 in honor of Candlemas, a holiday celebrating the Virgin Mary's presentation of Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem 40 days after his birth.

Along the way, February 2 also became associated with weather prediction, perhaps due to its proximity to the pagan Celtic festival of Imbolc—also a time of meteorological superstition—which falls on February 1.

Tradition held that the weather on Candlemas was important: Clear skies meant an extended winter.

Legend has it that the Romans also believed that conditions during the first days of February were good predictors of future weather, but the empire looked tohedgehogsfor their forecasts.

These two traditions melded in Germany and were brought over to the United States by German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania. Lacking hedgehogs, the German settlers substituted native groundhogs in the ritual, and Groundhog Day was born.

(Download a National Geographicgroundhog pictureas wallpaper.)

Punxsutawney Phil. Will. Not. Die.

In 1887 a group of groundhog hunters fromPunxsutawney (map)dubbed themselves the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club and declared their furry oracle, Punxsutawney Phil, the one and only"official"weather-prognosticating groundhog. The Punxsutawney ceremony originated around the same time.

More than a hundred years later, Punxsutawney Phil remains the star of Groundhog Day, though rivals such asStaten Island ChuckandGen. Beauregard Leemaintain regional fame. (See"Groundhogs Disagree on Winter Prognosis"{2009}.)

According to Punxsutawney folklore, Phil owes his long lifespan to an"elixir of life,"served every summer at the annual Groundhog Picnic, of which there are curiously no photographs.

Despite the Inner Circle's claims, such longevity would make Punxsutawney Phil a statistical anomaly, to say the least—groundhogs in captivity typically live no longer than about ten years, which suggests Phil's name, passed down like"Lassie,"may be the only immortal thing about him. Then again, the current Phil, weighing in at 20 pounds (9 kilograms) versus the usual 13 (6 kilograms), is anything but ordinary.

(Find out whyPunxsutawney Phil and other hibernating animals may suffer dangerous wakeup calls due to global warming.)

When he's not predicting the weather, Punxsutawney Phil makes his home at the Groundhog Zoo, an annex of the town library.

Also known as woodchucks, groundhogs are rodents of the marmot genus. Native to most of Canada and the eastern U.S., groundhogs gorge themselves all summer, then hibernate between fall's first frost and the start of spring—with significantly lower heart rates and body temperatures. Seen mainly around fields, streams, and roads, these squirrel cousins feast mainly on grasses and other plants, as well as fruit and tree bark.

Groundhog Day 2011 Predictions: Flipping a Coin More Accurate?

While Phil's proponents maintain that his predictions are 100 percent accurate, the U.S.National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)has estimated that Phil is correct only about 40 percent of the time.

The NCDC reached their conclusion by taking Phil's predictions and comparing them with average temperatures in February and March. In many years when Phil's predicted six more weeks of winter weather, February and March have turned out to be warmer than average.

But to obsess over the accuracy of Phil's predictions is to miss the point, Chapin said."It's more about having fun."

Groundhog Day Robot to Replace Punxsutawney Phil?

Not everyone finds the annual event entertaining, though.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 2010 sent a letter to the president of the Inner Circle suggesting they retire Phil to a sanctuary and replace him with an electronic groundhog.

"Other popular exhibitions have featured robotic penguins and dolphins who swim and communicate just like real animals do,"the letter says,"and we think that an animatronic groundhog would similarly mesmerize a crowd full of curious spectators in Punxsutawney."

Chapin, thePunxsutawney Spiriteditor and—journalistic objectivity be damned—an unabashed Punxsutawney Phil fan, dismissed PETA's letter as a publicity stunt.

"The thing about PETA is they only get worried about Punxsutawney Phil once a year,"Chapin said."The other 364 days of the year they don't say anything,"he said."It's an interesting idea, but I don't suspect Phil will be retiring anytime soon."

forNational Geographic News

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First One-Fingered Dinosaur Found—Dug for Bugs?

Dig this: Aparrot-size dinosaur has been discovered with just one enlarged"digging"finger on each hand, scientists announced today.

Unearthed in northeasternChina,Linhenykus monodactylusis a member of the theropod dinosaurs, the group of two-legged carnivores that includesTyrannosaurusrexandVelociraptor.

Most theropods had three fingers on each hand. ButLinhenykusbelongs to a family known as the alvarezsauroids: small, long-legged dinosaurs that had one big finger alongside two barely functional nub fingers.

"Some researchers speculate that these dinosaurs used their hands to dig {up} termite nests,"said study leader Xu Xing of theInstitute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropologyin Beijing. This was probably the case forLinhenykusas well, he said.

(Related:"Digging Dinosaur Discovered Inside Fossil Den.")

Linhenykus'hand does have a leftover bone for a second finger, but the nub of a digit wouldn't have worked at all, Xu added.

That makesLinhenykusthe only known one-fingered dinosaur, he said.

New Dinosaur Adds to Tale of Hand Evolution

The new dinosaur was discovered in a fossil-rich rock formation that dates to the lateCretaceous period, between 84 and 75 million years ago. The site is near the Inner Mongolian town ofLinhe (map), which helped inspire the dinosaur's name.

(Related:"New Dinosaur—'Exquisite' Raptor Found.")

Alvarezsauroid fossils have been found in North and South America as well as Asia, dating from the late Jurassic to the late Cretaceous. Finding an alvarezsauroid in Asia dated to the late Cretaceous adds to the story of this group's dispersal around the world, Xu said.

"{They} probably originated in Asia, then dispersed from Asia to {the ancient supercontinent} Gondwana, and then back to Asia, and finally from Asia to North America,"he said.

The other dinosaurs in this group probably didn't make much use of their functional nub fingers, the study authors note. But the extra fingers would have been biologically inexpensive to maintain, so they didn't totally disappear.

By contrast,Linhenykushad no working vestigial nubs, and its one long finger wasn't as specialized for digging as the digits of other alvarezsauroids. This demonstrates that hand evolution in this group"did not follow a simple linear trend,"the study authors write.

The new, one-fingered dinosaur is described online today in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

forNational Geographic News

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NASA Finds Smallest Earthlike Planet Outside Solar System

The smallestplanetyet spied outside oursolar systemhas been found orbiting a sunlike star about 560 light-years away, astronomers announced today. Known as Kepler-10b, the planet is just 1.4 timesEarth's size and 4.6 times its mass.

The planet, found usingNASA's Kepler spacecraft, is the first of the more than 500 known exoplanets that's definitively rocky—much like Earth, Mars, Venus, or Mercury—the study team says. Launched in March 2009, Kepler was designed to hunt for potentially habitable Earthlike planets.

Astronomers have been studying Kepler-10b since its discovery in 2009, when the team detected a periodic dimming of the host star as the planet passed in front of the star.

Finding such a small planet this way was no easy feat—seen from a similar distance, Earth passing in front of the sun would cause a 0.01 percent reduction in the star's brightness, saidNatalie Batalhaof San Jose State University, lead author of an upcoming paper describing the find.

"Imagine you have 10,000 light bulbs and you take one away. That's the change in brightness we're looking for,"Batalha said today during a meeting of theAmerican Astronomical Societyin Seattle, Washington.

Still, after using Kepler and other instruments to precisely calculate the new planet's size, mass, and density, Batalha said,"we know without question that this is a rocky world."

Smallest Planet Has Density of Iron

Before figuring out the nature of Kepler-10b, the scientists looked at the host star's properties, as revealed by starquakes, acoustic disturbances that make the entire star ring like a bell.

"In the same way that we use a sonogram to probe an unborn fetus and earthquakes to probe the interior of the Earth, we use starquakes to probe the interior structure and properties of the star itself,"Batalha said.

"A tiny star would yield different {vibration} frequencies than a large one, just as when you strum a violin you're going to get a different sound than when you strum a cello."

Using starquakes, Batalha and colleagues were able to accurately determine the size, mass, and age of the star, which in turn allowed them to make very fine-tuned estimates of the new planet's characteristics.

Astronomers carefully studied the tiny variations in starlight to determine Kepler-10b's size. The observations also revealed that the planet is very close to the star, orbiting once every 20 hours.

(Related:"Five New Planets Found; Hotter Than Molten Lava.")

Using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the Kepler team made precise measurements of minute shifts in the wavelengths of the host star's light. This data showed how the star nodded back and forth in response to the planet's gravity, allowing the team to calculate the masses of both objects.

Based on this combined data, the team concludes that Kepler-10b must be a rocky world with an average density of 8.8 grams per cubic centimeter—about the same as a chunk of iron.

Rocky World is"Planetary Missing Link"

Being rocky, however, is no guarantee that a planet will be habitable. In the case of Kepler-10b, one side of the planet always faces the star, so that side would have a surface temperature of 2,500 degrees F (1,370 degrees C), Batalha estimates.

It's highly unlikely that such a world would retain an atmosphere, since the searing hot gases would rapidly escape into space.

Still, Kepler-10b is an enormously important find, saidGeoffrey Marcy, a planet hunter at the University of California, Berkeley. Marcy, who is involved in the Kepler mission, was not a core member of Batalha's team.

"In astronomy, we've been discovering giant gas planets for 15 years. But the ultimate goal is to discover habitable worlds, like Earth,"he said at the AAS meeting. (Related:"New Planet System Found—May Have Hidden 'Super Earth.'")

According to Marcy, Kepler-10b is the"planetary missing link."

"It's definitely not a gas giant like Jupiter. Nor is it habitable—it's too hot. This is a transitional planet somewhere between a gas giant and what we've been hoping to find."

One other possibly rocky planet, COROT-7b, might be even more Earthlike in size and mass, Batalha agreed. But its star is much more active with flares and other disturbances, making it difficult to nail down important parameters with the needed precision. (See"'Super Earth' May Really Be New Planet Type: Super-Io.")

"For Kepler-10, we were lucky,"she said."It's a very quiet star."

forNational Geographic News

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PHOTOS: Six Long-Lost Haitian Frog Species Found

This gallery is part of aNational Geographic News serieson global water issues.

Scientists searching for long-lost frogs in Haiti’s forests came face to face with the critically endangered La Hotte glanded frog, which sees the world through unusual, sapphire-colored eyes.

The frog is among half a dozen newly rediscovered Haitian species, which had not been seen for nearly two decades and occur nowhere else in the world, found by researchers fromConservation International(CI) andIUCN’s Amphibian Specialist Group

“All we hear fromHaitiis bad news and we wanted to highlight something unique that Haiti has and really should be proud of,” said Conservation International’s Robin Moore, an amphibian conservation specialist and co-leader of the expedition. “It really is a symbol of what there is left to fight for and protect in Haiti.”

(Related:"Haiti Earthquake Pictures: Devastation on the Day After.")

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