12 October 2006

Another new species


Wow, the second new vertebrate species in a week! This time, a mouse in Europe. I like the point that the article mentions: "it was generally assumed that the European biodiversity had been entirely picked over by the natural history pioneers of the 19th century."

We are heavily ignorant of our natural world and the creatures that live in it. Which makes it all the more maddening that most biological research is focused on four or five species for which we have the most genetic information: mouse, fruit fly (Drosophila), the plant Arabidopsis, a little nematode worm C. elegans, and maybe zebrafish (Danio) now being the fifth.

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