Scientists from the American Museum of Natural History discovered more than 70 new species in 2025

Newly described species range from insects to mammals to a new mineral

American Museum of Natural History

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A new genus and species of sea anemone, Endolobactis simoesii

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Credit: © Ricardo Gonzalez Muñoz

From fruit flies that bite to a tiny mouse opossum and a feathered dinosaur preserved with the remains of its last meal, more than 70 new species were described this year by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History. The discoveries span an extraordinary range of life—dinosaurs, mammals, fishes, reptiles, insects, arachnids, marine invertebrates, and even a previously unknown mineral, highlighting the Museum’s continued leadership in exploring the natural world.

Some of these species are the result of recent fieldwork and modern collecting expeditions, while others were uncovered by revisiting specimens that had been preserved in the Museum’s collections for decades, awaiting new technologies and fresh scientific insight.

“Together, these discoveries highlight the remarkable richness of Earth’s biodiversity and underscore the enduring value of natural history collections,” said the Museum’s Senior Vice President and Provost of Science Cheryl Hayashi. “Specimens preserved across generations continue to reveal new insights, reminding us how much there is still to learn about life on our planet.”

Among the newly described species are:

• A new genus and species of sea anemone, Endolobactis simoesii, that has frond-like projections located on its lobes. The discovery results from an effort to improve scientists’ understanding of the diversity of sea anemones of the Atlantic side of Mexico and brings the number of documented species in this region to 24. (Zootaxa)

 

• Two species of fruit flies whose mouthparts are modified into a pair of hard “jaws” in the males. An extraordinary feature among flies, these structures are likely used for grasping the female during courtship. Both species are known from single specimens collected from the Philippines in the 1930s but just recently studied. (Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington)

 

• A Jurassic reptile with python-like hooked teeth and a body similar to a gecko’s that has links to the origins of lizards and snakes. The new species, Breugnathair elgolensis, was discovered in Scotland’s Isle of Skye by an international team of researchers and is one of the oldest relatively complete fossil lizards yet discovered. (Nature)

 

• A new species of mineral, called Lucasite-(La), which was discovered within a volcanic rock in Russia. The mineral was officially approved by the International Mineralogical Association this year, and the type material is now part of the Museum’s permanent collection. (European Journal of Mineralogy)

 

• A small species of mouse opossum with an exceptionally long nose and tail (Marmosa chachapoya). The mouse opossum was found in Parque Nacional Rio Abiseo in a remote part of the Peruvian Andes formerly occupied by people of the pre-Columbian Chachapoya culture, for which the species is named. Few species of mouse opossums have been collected at such a high elevation. (American Museum Novitates)

 

• A squirrel-sized animal that lived in the early Jurassic in what is now China between about 174 and 201 million years ago, Camurocondylus lufengensis. In a study led by researchers at the Museum and at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, C. lufengensis was detailed along with a second species discovered in the 1980s, finding that the evolution of the modern mammal jaw is more complex than previously thought. (Nature)

 

• A new genus and species of a crinoid, an ancient group of marine animals still alive today—sometimes called sea lilies—that are related to starfish, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers. Discovered on the Natiscotec River on Anticosti Island, Quebec, the new fossil species, Anticosticrinus natiscotecensis, has a unique pattern of plates on the main structure of its body. (Journal of Paleontology)

 

• A fish from northwestern Madagascar that was discovered more than 20 years ago when the lead scientist was a graduate student. The new species, a cichlid that was named Paretroplus risengi, is distinguished by unique breeding coloration among other features. (Deep Blue Documents)

 

• Forty-seven species of fossil and modern insects, primarily bees, including a “teddy bear” bee species from Vietnam, Habropoda pierwolae (Raffles Bulletin of Zoology); a cuckoo bee with long, sword-like spines on its back, Xiphodioxys haladai (American Museum Novitates); a digger bee from Chile, Anthophora brunneipecten, with a small comb on its face for combing up pollen from its host plants (Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine); and a fossil bumble bee species from the crater lake of Enspel, Germany, still carrying pollen, Bombus messegus (New Phytologist)

 

• Two new species from the group of earliest feathered dinosaurs that lived about 125 million years ago in what is now China: one that was originally identified as a primitive “bird,” Sinosauropteryx lingyuanensis, and was discovered more than 10 years ago; and the other, Huadanosaurus sinensis, which was found with two mammal skeletons in its abdomen, the remains of its last meal. (National Science Review)

 

• Two new species of suckermouth catfishes from rapids along the Congo River, Chiloglanis kinsuka and Chiloglanis wagenia. These sister species are both highly adapted to the river and are separated by nearly 1 mile of river (1600 kilometers). (American Museum Novitates)

 

• Four species of small “sap” flies (family Aulacigastridae) in 17 million-year old amber from the Dominican Republic, captured when the tree resin was still soft. These flies today feed on the sap of wounded trees. The species reveal a surprising connection between the Caribbean and North America, since most such connections today and in the past are with Central and South America. (Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington)

 

• A suckermouthed minnow from the highlands of Vietnam that was collected and shelved 25 years ago by Museum ichthyologists and only recently examined. This is the first species of this genus discovered in Vietnam, and it was given the name Supradiscus varidiscus. (American Museum Novitates)

 

• Four different arachnids, including a scorpion from Iran—Hemiscorpius jiroftensis—whose venom is of interest in the development of pharmaceuticals (Diversity); a giant vinegaroon/whip scorpion from Mexico, Mastigoproctus spinifemoratus, discovered in collections borrowed from the California Academy of Sciences (Arthropoda); a short-tailed whip scorpion from the Venezuelan Amazon, Jipai longevus (Zootaxa); and a troglomorphic, cave-dwelling hooded tick-spider from Venezuela, Cryptocellus armasi (Zootaxa)

 

• A cryptic large-eyed fish from the Kouilou-Niari River in the Republic of the Congo that had long been misidentified. The new species, Labeo niariensis, a type of African fish known as Labeo, a type of carp, is based on specimens collected between 2010 and 2013. (Journal of Fish Biology)

 

• A pollen wasp (Metaparagia cuttacutta) collected in the Northern Territory, Australia. It represents the tenth described species of this genus and was collected by the lead scientist while he was stranded in Australia for eight months during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Australian Entomologist)

A new species of small “sap” fly, Aulacigaster alabaster, preserved in 17 million-year old amber from the Dominican Republic

Credit

© David Grimaldi

A new species of mouse opossum with an exceptionally long nose and tail, Marmosa chachapoya

Credit

© Pedro Peloso

ABOUT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY (AMNH)

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City, founded in 1869 with a dual mission of scientific research and science education, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses more than 40 permanent exhibition halls, galleries for temporary exhibitions, the Rose Center for Earth and Space including the Hayden Planetarium, and the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. The Museum’s scientists draw on a world-class permanent collection of more than 30 million specimens and objects, some of which are billions of years old, and on one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. Through its Richard Gilder Graduate School, the Museum offers two of the only free-standing, degree-granting programs of their kind at any U.S. museum: the Ph.D. program in Comparative Biology and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Earth Science residency program. Visit amnh.org for more information.

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Illinois study shows public seed banks can fast-track corn quality research

University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

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University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign corn breeders Martin Bohn (left) and Christopher Mujjabi (right) are leveraging public genebanks to speed up the corn breeding process to develop high-quality, resilient crops.

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Credit: University of Illinois

URBANA, Ill. — University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign corn breeders know profitability is about more than yield. By tweaking kernel composition, they can tailor corn for lucrative biotech applications, industrial products, overseas markets, and more. But to efficiently unlock these valuable traits, breeders must first understand their genetic underpinnings.   

Traditional corn breeding usually takes years and requires acres of replicated trials, not to mention federal funding to support the research. But tapping into public genebanks and shared data, along with modern computational tools, can dramatically speed up the process.

Corn breeder Martin Bohn, professor in the Department of Crop Sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois, recently led a project exploring kernel composition in nearly 1,000 diverse maize inbred lines from the USDA-ARS North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, Iowa. The collection is part of the nation’s system of seed banks — including two major collections housed at Illinois — representing many thousands of high-quality crop genotypes that are freely accessible to researchers. 

Using near-infrared spectroscopy and publicly available genomic data, the team, which included undergraduate researcher Stephen Gray, identified genetic regions influencing both the average values and the variability of key kernel composition traits.

“Seed banks contain an incredible amount of genetic diversity, but they are often underused for quantitative genetics and breeding,” Bohn said. “Our results show that these resources can be used effectively to generate meaningful genetic insights, even before launching large, multi-year field experiments.”

Because seed bank accessions are typically available only in small quantities, often as packets of 100 seeds from a single genotype, the study relied on unreplicated seed samples, a situation traditionally viewed as a major limitation in scientific studies. To address this challenge, the researchers validated their findings by comparing their results with large, replicated field studies conducted by other research groups. Strong agreement between studies confirmed that the unreplicated data captured real genetic signals.

“We compared our estimates with a huge replicated field experiment by colleagues in Minnesota that overlapped with 200-300 of the lines we used from the NCRPIS collection,” Bohn said. “We found that the correlation between their kernel data and ours was actually pretty high, so it gave us confidence that our data is actually meaningful and can be trusted.”

The team applied genome-wide association studies, variance-based genetic analyses, and genomic prediction models to identify both well-known and previously unreported genomic regions associated with kernel composition traits.

“Many of the signals we found were in regions where genes had already been identified for the traits that we were interested in — protein, starch, oil, and some others — so it confirmed that our analysis was on the right track,” Bohn said. “But we also found new ones. This is cool because these are new candidate genes we can explore further.”

The fact that the study uncovered new breeding targets is just one reason Bohn and his colleagues are excited about the research. 

Doctoral student Christopher Mujjabi, a co-author on the study, said the work highlights a shift in how breeding research can begin. “Instead of starting with years of replicated field trials, researchers can first explore what’s already stored in gene banks,” he said. “That helps prioritize the most promising material and makes breeding programs more efficient.”

The findings demonstrate how public germplasm collections, high-throughput phenotyping, and shared data can be combined to accelerate crop improvement, particularly for traits tied to nutrition, processing quality, and emerging specialty markets.

Bohn added, “We have developed a pipeline that allows researchers to utilize the genetic treasures that are located in our gene banks. You don't always have to do an elaborate experiment as a first step. You can get an idea of what is in that collection, dive into the really interesting materials, and then utilize these for further studies.”

The study, “Mean and variance heterogeneity loci impact kernel compositional traits in maize,” is published in The Plant Genome [DOI: 10.1002/tpg2.70131]. 

Research in the College of ACES is made possible in part by Hatch funding from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. This study was also supported by two competitive NIFA grants [2020-51300-32180 and 2017-51300-27115].

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Journal

The Plant Genome

DOI

10.1002/tpg2.70131 

U.S. Mass shootings trigger starkly different congressional responses on social media along party lines, NYY Tandon study finds

Advanced analysis shows Democrats respond directly to shooting events within 48 hours, while Republicans show no such response

NYU Tandon School of Engineering

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After mass shootings, Democrats are nearly four times more likely than Republicans to post about guns on social media, but the disparity goes deeper than volume, according to research from NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

The study analyzed the full two-year term of the 117th Congress using computational methods designed to distinguish true cause-and-effect relationships from mere coincidence. The  analysis reveals that mass shootings directly trigger Democratic posts within roughly two days, while Republicans show no such causal response.

Topic analysis of gun-related posts, moreover, reveals strikingly different foci. Democrats are far more likely to zero in on legislation, communities, families, and victims, while Republicans more often center on Second Amendment rights, law enforcement, and crime.

The study, in PLOS Global Public Health, analyzed 785,881 total posts from 513 members of the 117th Congress on X over two years, and identified 12,274 gun-related posts using keyword-based filtering. The team tracked how legislators’ posting related to 1,338 mass shooting incidents that occurred between January 2021 and January 2023.

"In this research, we tested a long-running concern, namely that when it comes to gun violence, Americans too often talk past each other instead of with each other,” said Institute Professor Maurizio Porfiri, the paper’s senior author. Porfiri is director of NYU Tandon’s Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP) and of its newly formed Urban Institute.  “Our findings expose a fundamental difference in the way we mourn and react in the aftermath of a mass shooting. Building consensus with these stark differences across the political aisle becomes exceptionally difficult under these conditions.” 

The research team employed the PCMCI+ causal discovery algorithm, which uses statistical methods to identify whether one event genuinely causes another or whether they simply occur around the same time. Combined with mixed-effects logistic regression and topic modeling, this approach revealed that Democrats respond causally to shooting severity—particularly the number of fatalities—both immediately and the day after incidents. Posting likelihood rose especially when incidents occurred in legislators' home states. 

"The findings matter because they expose a structural problem in how Americans address gun violence as a nation," said CUSP Assistant Research Scientist Dmytro Bukhanevych, the paper’s lead author. "When Democrats surge onto social media after mass shootings while Republicans have a comparatively smaller level of response, there's no shared moment of attention. The asymmetry itself becomes a barrier to meaningful exchange."

The research may help advocates and policymakers time interventions more strategically. With congressional attention peaking immediately and declining within roughly 48 hours, sustained public pressure needs to extend well beyond the immediate aftermath. And understanding the distinct frames each party uses could help communicators craft messages that bridge ideological divides rather than reinforcing them.

Along with Porfiri and Bukhanevych, CUSP PhD candidate Rayan Succar served as the PLOS paper’s co-author.

This study contributes to Porfiri’s ongoing research related to U.S. gun prevalence and violence, which he and colleagues are pursuing under a National Science Foundation grant to study the “firearm ecosystem” in the United States. Prior published research under the grant explores:

• the degree that political views, rather than race, shape reactions to mass shooting data;

• the role that cities’ population size plays on the incidences of gun homicides, gun ownership and licensed gun sellers;

• motivations of fame-seeking mass shooters;

• factors that prompt gun purchases;

• state-by-state gun ownership trends; and

• forecasting monthly gun homicide rates.

About New York University Tandon School of Engineering

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering is home to a vibrant community working across disciplines to solve humanity’s greatest challenges. Researchers and students advance and learn at the intersections of emerging areas including Quantum Sciences and Technologies, Robotics and Embodied Intelligence, Engineering Systems, Sustainability, Health and Culture. The school dates back to 1854, the founding year of both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute. Located in the heart of Brooklyn, NYU Tandon is a vital part of New York University and its unparalleled global network. For more information, visit engineering.nyu.edu.

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Journal

PLOS Global Public Health

DOI

10.1371/journal.pgph.0005493 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

How do mass shootings shape the social media discourse on guns in the US Congress? Causal discovery and topic modeling

Article Publication Date

17-Dec-2025