Scientists discover one species is three sub species. The animals were known. The sub speciation is new. I would imagine all three are now critically endangered.
(I live in Brisbane and found out last month squirrel gliders live in suburban woodland close to my old house, I wish I'd known when I lived there and now I want to go back and see them in the flesh)
Greater Glider on Wikipedia [1] which links to the Nature paper Genetic evidence supports three previously described species of greater glider, Petauroides volans, P. minor, and P. armillatus [2]:
> The greater glider is the common name for three species of large gliding marsupials found in Australia. Until 2020 they were considered to be one species, Petauroides volans. In 2020 morphological and genetic differences, obtained using diversity arrays technology, showed there were three species subsumed under this one name. The two new species were named Petauroides armillatus and Petauroides minor. [2]
I swear I contemplated going in to wildlife biology as a kid, but decided against it because I figured there was no more cool, furry animals to discover. I also may have misguidedly thought this was the field to enter if I wanted to find Bigfoot. :-P
Exciting for the biology crowd especially. Very cool. Obligatory dark realization: Any new species discovered these days must almost certainly immediately recognized as endangered. Still cool.
Don't be so pessimistic. There are many species that still survive and even some endangered ones that we're bringing back.
On one hand more nations industrializing threatens everything, on the other, we are becoming more aware of the destruction we wreak, so we're starting to mitigate it better.
Look at the sources below to see what we are doing to the things we need for survival.
We need IMMEDIATE action to stop extinction crisis, David Attenborough - BBC [0]
How long do most species last before going extinct? [1]
Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction (2015)[2]
Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines (2017) [3]. Follow up study of [2]
UN report: Humans accelerating extinction of other species [4]
Barring a massive change in how we fish, there won’t be any sushi left by 2048 [5]. The source of that article [6] and the related study [7] (only abstract, but you can use another source to get DOI: 10.1126/science.1132294 )
(I live in Brisbane and found out last month squirrel gliders live in suburban woodland close to my old house, I wish I'd known when I lived there and now I want to go back and see them in the flesh)