The Geological era that we live in is called the anthropocene. This is because of the global impact that humans and their activities have made after they evolved. A notable effect of changes seen in the anthropocene has been a rapid increase in the rate of extinction of other species.
However, skeptics of climate change keep pointing to the large discrepancies in the extinction rates published by various researchers. The online magazine, Yale Environment 360, has reported a range of 24 to 150 species lost per day. Either of these numbers is alarming. A total of about 1,000 species of animals have been actually documented to have gone extinct in the last 400 years.
We do not have a reasonably complete inventory of the animals and plants on our planet. New species are still being found and documented. For instance, a report in The Hindu dated March 3, 2021, described five new frogs from the Western Ghats.
In India, a few groups (at the IISc Bengaluru, University of Delhi, Kerala Forest Research Institute, etc.) have made stellar contributions to lists of new discoveries.
Looking for new species
Finding new species can be a painstaking work. Many new species are found in biodiversity hotspots that are heaven for snakes and mosquitos, but are not very hospitable to humans.
Scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Kolkata found a new species of shrew on the island of Narcondam, a part of the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and named it crocidura narcondamica ( Scientific Reports, 2021). This shrew is found nowhere else.
Narcondam is a small island and has a dormant volcano. Nearly all of it is densely forested.
Shrews earned an undeserving, ill-tempered reputation in a work of Shakespeare. But the animal itself is rather secretive. They are small in size; our own recent discovery being about 10 cm long. Their hearts can beat at 1,000 times per minute.
Of what potential use could such discoveries be? A few shrew species are venomous, which is highly unusual for a mammal. A few studies, not very detailed, have indicated that this venom contains chemical entities of interest to health professionals.
The accelerated extinction of life forms has led to major initiatives to sequence as many species as possible. There is a hope that with scientific advances, we may have ‘Jurassic Park’ scenarios where at least some extinct life forms are brought back to life. At a more prosaic level, comparing genomes can provide clues for the betterment of human health. A regularly updated Wikipedia list of completely sequenced genomes lists 100 bird species and 150 mammals. Many more are needed.
The Nicobar treeshrew
It is, therefore, heartening to know that the laboratories of the ZSI have published the mitochondrial genome sequence of another rare mammal endemic to the Nicobar Islands — the Nicobar treeshrew ( Scientific Reports, 2022).
Treeshrews are not really shrews; more closely resembling squirrels. They are considered to be promising models for the study of influenza H1N1 and Hepatitis virus infections.
Let us hope that the ZSI will sequence the whole genome of the Nicobar treeshrew soon.
- In India, a few groups (at the IISc Bengaluru, University of Delhi, Kerala Forest Research Institute, etc.) have made stellar contributions to lists of new discoveries.
- Scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Kolkata found a new species of shrew on the island of Narcondam, a part of the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and named it crocidura narcondamica (Scientific Reports, 2021). This shrew is found nowhere else.
- Treeshrews are not really shrews; more closely resembling squirrels. They are considered to be promising models for the study of influenza H1N1 and Hepatitis virus infections.
(The article was written in collaboration with Sushil Chandani who works in molecular modelling. sushil chandani@gmail.com)
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