Does the discovery of new species mean that the recent clamor about "mass extinction" is all hot air? And what does these new animals' appearance on the scene mean for us?
Thirty years ago, veteran zoologist Johnson Chen wrote in the preface to his Synopsis of the Vertebrates of Taiwan, Taiwan's first comprehensive vertebrate species catalogue: "Fishes aside, it is extremely rare for new species to be recorded in one of the other four classes of vertebrates--the mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds."
Today, his words have been repudiated, for the list of Taiwan's animals has continued to grow apace.
Since 1983, when Professor Lin Chun-yi of the biology department at Tunghai University published his report on a survey of 62 species of terrestrial mammals in Taiwan, researchers have continued to make new finds. The recent discovery by researchers from the Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute (TESRI) of the bat species Myotis adversus taiwanensis and Barbastella in the mountains of Nantou County has brought the number of known mammal species in Taiwan to 69.
As for amphibians and reptiles, since Lu Kuang-yang, a professor of zoology at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) returned to Taiwan from the US 19 years ago, he and his students have published reports on seven new species, including the Taipei green tree frog and the tree frogs Rhaco-phorus aurantiventris and Rhacophorus arvalis.
Waiting to be discovered
Kwang-Tsao Shao, a research fellow at Academia Sinica's Institute of Zoology, also says that since the publication two years ago by marine biologists of a Catalogue of Taiwan's Fish Species, over a hundred new fish species have been found along Taiwan's coasts to be added to the list.
Apart from vertebrates, a surprising number of new invertebrate species have also emerged. A catalogue of 1492 shelled mollusk species found in Taiwan, published in 1941 by the Japanese biologist T. Kuroda, virtually became a bible for scholars and collectors. It lists 331 species of bivalves.
Forty years later, the catalogue of Taiwan bivalves compiled and published by Wu Wen-lung, another research fellow at Academia Sinica's Institute of Zoology, listed more than twice that number of bivalve species. Scholars estimate that in total Taiwan may have as many as 2500 species of shelled mollusks, and that some 60-70% of the land snails among them are endemic species--species found only in Taiwan--in which "Taiwan" is part of the species name.
"There are still many unrecorded invertebrates in Taiwan's mountain areas, without a doubt," says Lu Kuang-yang. Because we know so little about the sow bugs, centipedes, scorpions and other creatures of the forest understory, he says, "we don't even have names for them."
An island ecology
For early biologists, a large isolated island cut off by the sea usually promised a wealth of previously undiscovered natural organisms, because in the course of long isolation from the continents, its creatures were likely to have developed unique variations, becoming endemic species of the locality.
From the 16th and 17th centuries onward, Western adventurers and natural historians began to come to the island of Taiwan, and they were never disappointed with what they found here. With its range of climates from temperate to tropical, and its four major mountain ranges with more than 200 peaks over 3000 meters high--each in itself like an isolated small island--it provides a wide variety of disparate environments. Between North, South, East and West, and from high to low elevations, many different families and species of organisms occur in close proximity. Among small and less mobile animals, the proportion of endemic species is particularly high. For instance, of the ten known species of tree frogs in Taiwan, seven are endemic species, found nowhere else but here. TESRI has recently been conducting a survey of wildlife in Nantou County: of 167 named insect species, one third are endemic. Britain, with an area seven times that of Taiwan, has some 61 species of butterflies, but Taiwan has almost 400 recorded butterfly species.
Even today Taiwan continues to attract a steady stream of Western scholars to carry out nature research. For instance, Japanese researchers come in search of bats, and British and US biologists come to survey insect life. Many taxonomists love Taiwan because of the great diversity of species to be found on this small island.
In terms of its maritime geographical location, Taiwan lies within one of the world's most richly diverse coral reef zones. Coral reefs have been described as the tropical rainforests of the oceans. Their ecosystems support the greatest variety of fish species. The highest concentrations of mollusks in the world are found in the areas of the Indian and Pacific oceans south of the Ryukyu Islands and north of Australasia; Taiwan lies within this zone. Thus it is no surprise that someone has said that if biologists in Taiwan today do not discover new species, it means we have not kept up with the times and are not carrying out enough research into, or paying sufficient attention to, our natural environment.
Lost in the river of time
On the other hand, looking at the lists of endangered species singled out for conservation in Taiwan, the first list of protected animals released in 1984 under the ROC's Cultural Heritage Preservation Law named 23 species, but 10 years later in 1994 over 170 severely endangered species were identified in the list issued when the Wildlife Conservation Law was passed.
One might think that the constant appearance of wild animal species never before recorded should be a shot in the arm for Taiwan's ecology, suggesting that Taiwan may not, as some worry, be left with a biological community of only humans, pets and livestock, along with pests and vermin such as flies and rats.
But the discovery of new species raises little jubilation among Taiwan's biologists as a whole. For although scientists continue to record wildlife, in the words of zoologist Dr. Wu Hai-yin: "The plants and animals have always been there; we're just recording them before they die out." In other words, the animals being recorded today have not suddenly appeared from nowhere--they are "indigenous inhabitants" which came to our island before modern humans.
Today everyone knows that the great diversity of life on Earth was not created in the short space of seven days by the casual wave of a divine hand, but that species gradually "evolved" from earlier animals like a great tree putting out branches. The principle on which evolution relies is the accumulation of variations in organisms' genes across many generations. As they gradually come to differ more and more from the original species, new species emerge.
Especially for large mammals with long lifespans and a longer period of time from one generation to the next, the accumulation of change is a slow process. It takes many tens of thousands of years for them to cast off the form of their ancestors. Even for smaller animals the process may take ten thousand years or more. Thus the animals which now roam in Taiwan's wild places, from large beasts like the Formosan black bear and Formosan sambar to small creatures such as the beetles and moths we can barely tell apart with the naked eye in parks and gardens, all have long pedigrees reaching back thousands or tens of thousands of years.
As for the "humpback" fish which have appeared in recent years around Taiwan's nuclear power plants, these are not a stable "new species" which has emerged through genetic mutation to adapt to a new environment. They are the result of heat pollution of the sea, caused by waste water from the nuclear plants. This suppresses the fishes' ability to absorb calcium, and so leads to deformities in their skeletons. Researchers from Academia Sinica's Institute of Zoology have found that given suitable nourishment, the fish return to normal. And of course the humpback fish will not be listed for protection as a "species endemic to Taiwan" in the near future.
Since life began
According to various different estimates, somewhere between three and ten million species of organisms survive on our planet today. Although biologists are busily naming and cataloguing them, to date this work is not even half done: only some 1.8 million species have been identified.
Whatever has life must face death. Of all the species that have appeared on Earth since the first microscopic life forms emerged three-and-a-half billion years ago, over 90% have passed from existence. The reason there is still such a dazzling array of species on Earth today, with all the "natural wonders" they display, is because since life took its first steps, animals have shown a resilient capacity to face the challenges of all kinds of environmental pressures, by every imaginable means. Although the process has been a bloody one in which many species have bowed out into history, new species have continuously stepped forward onto the stage.
Paleobiologists have discovered that extinctions of large numbers of species have occurred at intervals of around 26 million years. The last such mass extinction episode took place some 11.3 million years ago, so the next large-scale renewal of species should be due about 10 million years from now.
In fact, just like the birth of new species, extinction is usually a long-drawn-out process. The complete extinction 65 million years ago of the dinosaurs--the subjects of unlimited imaginings of us latter-day creatures--was a seemingly calamitous and tragic event which left no survivors. But in fact the average rate at which the dinosaurs died out was equivalent to one species every thousand years. Even if humans had been alive at the time, we could not easily have observed the course of their demise.
Mass extinction courtesy of the human race
With the exception of livestock varieties crossbred and improved by humans over short periods of time, the evolution of living organisms occurs slowly, over a geological timescale against which the course of human history is just a brief interlude. Thus in a single lifetime we are unlikely to see distinct evidence of species' evolution. This is one reason why in the 19th century, before the advent of molecular biology, when Darwin tried to persuade people that man had evolved from common ancestors with the apes, he was mocked and ridiculed by his contemporaries who believed firmly in the story of the Creation.
But extinction today is no longer in step with the natural cycle. After the spread of humankind to every part of the world, the pace at which species have been disappearing from the face of the Earth has accelerated. Scientists even predict that by the middle of the next century, a quarter of the species now living on our planet will be close to extinction, or already extinct. The loss this will bring to mankind is incalculable, and will clearly threaten man's own survival.
This is one of the reasons why, when the Washington Convention (CITES) began to limit international trade in wildlife and wildlife products in 1973, it was like a spark which ignited battles to protect living species in countries around the world.
Today, evolution no longer suffices to fill the gap left by species lost because of human factors. The speed at which species are being lost today is cutting off the source from which new species would have sprung. Hence the overall trend in the entire animal kingdom is towards a reduced number of species, and this makes some scholars feel there is little point in recording new species. Some even find the richness and variety of the natural world disheartening, for many species are disappearing before man has even learned to distinguish them.
Most of the new species being recorded today are insects and other invertebrates, or saltwater fish species. Biologists generally agree that just as species are dying out as a result of human development and negligence, "the discovery of new species also reveals the inadequacy and imbalance of human research into wildlife."
Big is beautiful?
In the animal kingdom, which is broadly divided into the vertebrates and invertebrates, the few vertebrate orders of the birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians are just a minority. But they have always been the creatures investigated most by humans. Because we ourselves are large terrestrial vertebrates, mammals have the closest "blood ties" with man, while the birds, with their gift of flight, fire man's rich imagination, and are pleasing in their appearance. Thus mammals and birds take pride of place as objects of nature research.
In his book Ever Since Darwin--Reflections in Natural History, Stephen Jay Gould writes that if we find an extra bump on the tooth of a mammal, we classify it as a new species. But we lump together all the hundreds of thousands of species of single-celled organisms in nature as primitive organisms.
Thus since the 19th century, Western naturalists have been collecting specimens from around the world. Many large or flamboyant species of Taiwanese fauna such as Swinhoe's blue pheasant, the Formosan landlocked salmon, the Formosan rock monkey and the Mikado pheasant caused sensations in biological circles when they first appeared on the international stage.
Since the endemic Mikado pheasant was first recorded 80 years ago, no other new bird species has been discovered in Taiwan, and in recent years although mammals such as bats or shrews have been newly recorded here, the island's forests have been logged up to elevations of 2500 meters, and today if mammals have remained undiscovered it is because of their hidden or inaccessible habitat or their nocturnal habit.
The attention biologists bestow on different species among the vertebrates is also uneven. For instance, research into snakes, lizards and other reptiles is not commensurate with their numbers. A similar imbalance even applies to Taiwan's terrestrial mammals: from the start of the Japanese occupation era to today, over 200 research papers have been published on the Formosan rock monkey, but only 20-odd on bats, although these account for the largest number of Taiwan's mammalian species. But when it comes to invertebrate and aquatic animals with their less visible habitats and less endearing appearance, few people even perceive them as wildlife.
Seafood, not wildlife?
On the evolutionary tree, the first new shoot of the vertebrate animals sprang from the branch of the invertebrates. Examples of invertebrates include annelids, such as earthworms; arthropods, such as centipedes; insects, such as beetles, butterflies, bees and many others; and even favorites of the human dining table including echinoderms such as sea cucumbers and mollusks such as cockles and whelks. In terms of the food chain, they are mostly categorized as primary consumer species, which provide the main source of nourishment for consumer species--the large and predatory animals, including humans. Hence humans' perception of them is limited to their economic and practical value. If they cannot be exploited, there is no value in their existence.
For instance, when entomology--the study of insects--was founded, it was as a practical skill rather than a science. In Taiwan's universities knowledge about insects is largely taught in departments concerned with diseases and pests of plants. The biggest concern is how to destroy insect pests, and how to use bees to make honey. Thus apart from the widespread study of fruit flies for genetic research purposes, the types of insects most comprehensively investigated are mosquitos, flies, bees, ants and other insects directly harmful or beneficial to humans.
The creatures known collectively as insects, with their six legs and their distinct head, thorax and abdomen, number over a million named species, yet only some three hundred species harm human crops or otherwise have a conflict of interest with the human race. But apart from a tiny number of kinds such as butterflies, bees and crickets, most people's attitude towards insects is that they should all be wiped out.
It's just as hard to get people to regard fish as something more than simply food. All the fish in the vast oceans are precious wildlife, but in the past the main focus of research into "aquatic products" was on how to improve them and breed them artificially.
On land, research into invertebrates receives little interest, and because the attention of ecological researchers has long been focused on the ecological cycle on land, a huge question mark still hangs over how the ecosystems of the oceans, where life began, operate. Thus for anyone entering the fields of marine zoology or invertebrate zoology today, it's not difficult to discover one or two new species.
New, endangered species
Be it for lack of personnel and resources or because of our "blood ties," it is quite natural that people should have started by researching the "stars" of the animal world--birds and mammals. But because of mankind's subjective bias, the large animals have long obscured from our view the splendor of other animals, and we have overlooked the fact that despite their enormous diversity and numbers, these "hidden" animals also face a crisis of survival.
Looking in detail at the species on the protected lists of the ROC or other countries, most are vertebrates such as birds or mammals; large mammals such as elephants, rhinoceroses, bears and whales take pride of place, with specialized conservation groups devoted to each of them. The many thousands of birdwatchers around the world have also gradually drawn a clear picture of the crisis of survival which faces birds.
But while humans are worrying whether the white whale, the elephant or the rhinoceros will be the next animal to go extinct, many saltwater fish, invertebrates and small vertebrates are already disappearing, unnoticed.
Biologists estimate that for every bird species which goes extinct, 90 species of insects, 35 plant species and two fish species accompany it into oblivion.
Small animals do not need large hunting grounds, nor do they need large areas for their habitats. But this means that comparatively speaking, they suffer even faster destruction in the name of human development. When cities expand onto greenfield sites, wildlife populations may disappear overnight. Recently a small population of Taipei green tree frogs, which live only in northern Taiwan, was found around a pond in Taipei's Hsin-yi development zone which had not yet been filled in. To prevent the frogs being wiped out overnight by a truckload of earth, conservationists rose up and pleaded for the amphibians' lives, asking the city government to leave them a little area of unsullied land.
Thus many species newly recorded today are rare, or can even be added directly to the endangered list as soon as they are discovered. Many new species of tropical fish recorded by Kwang-Tsao Shao are being harvested by aquarium suppliers, and are disappearing fast.
Another tree frog, Rhacophorus arvalis, has recently been the center of much attention. According to Dr. Yang Yi-ju of NTU's Institute of Zoology, judging from its natural history it should be a widely distributed species, but it too is currently found only in parts of Chiayi and Yunlin counties. Lu Yang-kuang has recommended that Rhacophorus arvalis should be listed as an endangered species.
The Mikado pheasant's hidden larder
The sad loss of a food source for humans as a consumer species is only part of the story when fish and invertebrate species go extinct. Many small animals which humans know nothing of and so would not grieve after are quietly maintaining the normal operation of the ecosystem.
Professor Yang Ping-shih of NTU's Department of Plant Pathology and Entomology calculates that out of Taiwan's more than 400 bird species, 218 feed on insects. Sow bugs, millipedes and centipedes break down the withered branches and fallen leaves in the forests and transform them into "energy," thus helping along nature's chemical cycle before themselves dying and decaying to enrich the soil. The much-prized, protected Mikado pheasant and Swinhoe's blue pheasant peck among the fallen leaves and the soil in search of these arthropods to fill their crops. So without these universally feared centipedes and scorpions, we would be without these universally loved pheasants.
The well-known American biologist Edward Wilson, irked by conservationists' one-sided interest in large animals, once spoke out to say that "the small things run the world." He pointed out that in the whole cyclical biological system, without producer organisms, the consumer organisms would be in big trouble. But without the consumers, the world would go on just as happily.
Associate Professor Li Lingling of the zoology department at NTU observes that in zoology there is the theory of so-called "keystone species," whereby a species' existence and numbers affects the populations of other species. Such keystone species include the insects and bats which pollinate flowers, or the organisms which break down dead matter and so form a link in the cycle of nutrients. Conversely, when more than one species share the same status, if one disappears, another may be able to take its place and fill its role.
But when this theory is applied to closely interwoven ecosystems, deciding which species are key ones and which are superfluous is easier said than done.
A little world of beauty
When discussing the problems which face mankind, the importance of different species is often highlighted in various different contexts. For instance, with worsening environmental pollution, there is growing research interest in "indicator species," which can indicate the severity of pollution. These include frogs, which have very different larval and adult forms, and can live both on land and in water.
Whether in terms of their right to exist or their value to the ecosystem, an elephant and an ant are equal. From an evolutionary perspective, every wild species alive on Earth today is a repository of genes which have passed the test of natural selection. Only if "genetic diversity" is maintained can these genes come into play to respond to sudden changes in the environment. Therefore no matter whether beautiful or ugly, big or small, the loss of any wild creature is a matter of regret for the human race.
The more deeply people understand nature, the more they come to realize that man's subjective values are no measure of species' importance. Hence the idea has gradually spread among environmental researchers and conservationists that "we shouldn't simply be talking about elephants, rhinoceroses and whales--animals such as mollusks are also very important, however uninspiring their appearance." NTU zoology professor Li Lingling says that this is a trend: internationally, growing importance is being attached to conserving small animals, and knowledge about invertebrate and other communities is gradually being accumulated.
Many invertebrate organisms have begun to be included in protected species lists, and in addition to its various existing catalogues of endangered vertebrate animals, the World Conservation Union is also compiling lists of endangered invertebrates, salt-water fish species and even microorganisms. The US, apart from rehabilitating its national bird the bald eagle, has also included freshwater clams and endemic Hawaiian land snails in its list of protected animals.
The Butterfly Kingdom neglects butterflies
But for many groups of animals which are so diverse that science has not even had time to record them, human knowledge is so rudimentary that it makes conservation difficult.
The three levels of nature conservation--protection, rehabilitation and management--all require more scientific investigation to be undertaken on the species in question, before one can correctly estimate the degree of protection required and the level of exploitation permissible to achieve the management ideal of sustainable use.
In fact, for countries which started late in ecological research, the fact that their biological resource surveys and basic research are inadequate is not something they can be blamed for. Developing countries cannot be expected to have the depth of accumulated research of say, the data going back 100 years on average for every trout and salmon species in Europe and America, or one rare British species of lycaenid butterfly which has been researched for thirty or forty years, or researchers in the mold of the British entomologist R.H.L. Disney, who has spent 25 years completing over 100 papers about "scuttle flies," which most people have never even heard of.
Especially when a country has a large number of animal species, the task of classification, surveying of biological resources, and ecological research, is a long-term, gradual and cumulative process.
Sadly, after Taiwan reverted from Japanese to Chinese rule, although the exploitation of wildlife grew and grew, efforts to accumulate knowledge about these resources were limited by comparison, and even today ecological surveys must rely heavily on reports inherited from the Japanese era. Although there are many animal and plant survey reports from the Japanese era and before, the time gap means that knowledge of many species' status needs to be refreshed.
Taiwan has over 400 species of butterflies, but its epithet of the "Butterfly Kingdom" was actually acquired by exporting butterfly specimens. When Yang Ping-shih, who has recorded close to 20 water beetle species, was preparing to study Taiwan's endemic butterfly species Sasakia charonda formos-ana, he first collected previous related literature, but discovered that the species was mentioned by name in only three reports, all from the Japanese period. There were no details of its natural history, so understanding it is a matter entirely for future research.
Taiwan's research into snake venom serum has an international reputation. In the past countless snakes were slaughtered and skinned by the traders of Huahsi Street (Snake Alley) in Taipei, yet there has been a complete lack of research information on the distribution, current numbers or natural history of any Taiwanese snake species. Once, an expert on snake venom serums asked Tu Ming-chang, who researches the ecology of venomous snakes, how it was that he dared to catch highly poisonous sea snakes. "Because they're not at all aggressive," shrugged Tu Ming-chang, who is possibly the only person in Taiwan researching the natural history of venomous snake.
Knowledge accumulated by chance
With the rapid development of environmental conservation in Taiwan over the last decade or so, the basic ecological surveying and research which had been interrupted when Taiwan returned to Chinese rule has been taken up again, like a relay baton that had been dropped and long ignored. Ecologists are now trying to press ahead, but the going is still difficult.
Yaw-yuan Lin, a section chief in the National Parks Department of the Construction and Planning Administration, notes that although the national parks' prime objective is conservation, they have less to spend on research and conservation than on publicity and tourism-related items. Similarly, the conservation section at the Council of Agriculture, which administers conservation affairs nationwide, has a budget of only NT$200 million to cover research, publicity and other expenses, and internationally protected species take a large part of its resources.
Thus although new research into large vertebrates has increased in recent years, acquiring the data on population numbers, precise distribution and natural history which are needed in order to define conservation strategies, still depends on what Li Ling-ling describes as "chance accumulation."
Associate Professor Lin Liang-kung of the biology department at Tunghai University opines that although conservation gives the impression of booming, in fact for the last decade the government's and private organizations' approach to conservation has not moved beyond soft demands to conserve individual animals. They are still infatuated with the same animals that the Western adventurers of the past scrambled for, and devote the largest amount of resources to them.
The Formosan landlocked salmon was the main reason for the establishment of Shei-Pa National Park; the Formosan clouded leopard was fielded by the newly formed Green Party as its presidential candidate; and NT$200 million has been spent on the rehabilitation of the Formosan sika deer. But by the ecological definition, because these three species' wild populations are so small that they can no longer reproduce healthily, in effect they are already extinct. Much private effort and resources are pumped into surveys and research, and the ornithological societies dotted around Taiwan have helped complete our pictured of the island's birds, but worryingly the birds are still a "disadvantaged group."
Scientists are well aware that poisonous snakes need protection because of their important role in the ecosystem. But if you choose snakes or centipedes as your area of research, says Lu Kuang-yang, "you probably won't even get funding." He observes that such biases create public misperceptions and also lead to a vicious circle in Taiwan's wildlife research and conservation.
Our animals, others' research
Although invertebrates account for over 80% of the species in the animal kingdom, NTNU has sought for two years without success to appoint a faculty member with specialized research experience in the area of invertebrates. Fields such as the ecology of snakes, arthropods or mollusks are in many cases dominated by one or two people, or even completely neglected.
To study environmental change caused by global warming, in recent years the National Science Council has been conducting a long-term combined observation and research program at locations such as Fushan in Ilan County and Huihsun Forest in Taichung County, but despite a grand plan to bring together experts in areas ranging from atmosphere and rainfall to soils, animals and plants, they found they couldn't find anyone who was researching earthworms.
Earthworms break down substances in the soil, and with Taiwan's problems of heavy metals pollution, the only current hopes for rescuing condemned farmland rest on earthworms.
Lu Kuang-yang, who studies amphibians, was once told by a middle school teacher that a textbook mentioned tubellarian worms when it discussed organisms' "regenerative powers." But the teacher could obtain no specimens of the worms in Taiwan to use as teaching material. At the time Lu was doing some field surveys, so when he went out he also kept an eye out for the worms. Thus he discovered that tubellaria were to be found from the coastal plain at Kenting right up to a cirque lake 3600 meters high on Mt. Nanhu. But the only way he could get them identified was to send them off to Japan.
After recently becoming curious about spiders, biology lecturer Shyh-Hwang Chen of NTNU discovered that he could find no other colleagues in the ROC who were researching the arthropods. While revising the list of Taiwan's spider species, Chen discovered that compared with 20 years ago, 65 species had been added, but apart from two he had recorded himself, all had been reported by Japanese scholars. A biologist from Cambridge University who visited Taiwan for just a week recorded five insect species not previously observed in Taiwan.
Although research cannot be hurried, scholars are not content to simply announce the discovery of new species, and still less are species a resource to be monopolized by a minority. But if we look back for a moment we discover that after more than a decade of conservation work, researchers' ability to identify species has not improved, and we still have no overall picture of Taiwan's biological resources. Thus it is not surprising if scholars themselves are despondent.
Live by letting live
Living things do not depend for their existence on being recorded, classified or studied by humans, and humanity may never be able to fully appreciate the feelings of the other forms of life in nature. But the philosophy that "I need not know why the birds sing, but I hope they will sing forever" is not enough today when species are in danger and conservation work is essential.
If we hope to go on enjoying the company of other species as we face the challenges which nature sets us--at least until the next mass extinction episode descends on the natural world to usher in the next biological era--then we had better quicken our step, and strive earnestly to understand other living creatures!
[Picture Caption]
In the diverse world of nature, birds are mankind's favorites, and their numbers and distribution are the best understood. Our picture shows a ruddy kingfisher, a rare visitor to Taiwan. (photo by You Chuang-cheng)
Do moths need protecting too? Attracted by the lights of unthinking humans, some moths face a crisis of survival. Invertebrate animals are diverse and numerous, and their appearance is often unattractive, so it is difficult for many people to imagine that they also need protection.
Associate Professor Lin Liang-kung of Tunghai University is holding a Formosan black-bellied vole. Human knowledge of its natural history is limited--we only know that it reproduces far more slowly than other rodents.
Though reptiles are vertebrates too, they are studied by humans far less than mammals and birds. Pictured here is a skink.
Resource surveys and ecological research have to be conducted long term to bring useful results. The Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute has recently been making extensive field surveys of flora and fauna. Last year its staff discovered two new native bat species in the mountains of central Taiwan.
How many species remain hidden and undiscovered in Taiwan's beautiful mountain forests?
Previously unrecorded species are constantly being discovered, but as the tentacles of human development spread ever faster, in many cases their survival is already in doubt.
Although the Formosan rock monkey has been one of Taiwan's most intensively studied wildlife species since the 19th century, most previous research focused on biological, anatomical and medical aspects. Only in the past decade have people begun to study its ecology and habit s in detail. (photo by Diago Chiu)
Though reptiles are vertebrates too, they are studied by humans far less than mammals and birds. Pictured here is a skink.
Resource surveys and ecological research have to be conducted long term to bring useful results. The Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute has recently been making extensive field surveys of flora and fauna. Last year its staff discovered two new native bat species in the mountains of central Taiwan.
How many species remain hidden and undiscovered in Taiwan's beautiful mountain forests?
Previously unrecorded species are constantly being discovered, but as the tentacles of human development spread ever faster, in many cases their survival is already in doubt.
Although the Formosan rock monkey has been one of Taiwan's most intensively studied wildlife species since the 19th century, most previous research focused on biological, anatomical and medical aspects. Only in the past decade have people begun to study its ecology and habit s in detail. （photo by Diago Chiu）
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