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Meet the( Newest Known) Beetles!

Meet the( Newest Known) Beetles!

认识一下目前已知的最新种甲虫吧

The Creator would appearendowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other.That quip from biologist and atheist J. B. S. Haldane in 1949 is really about the extraordinary number of beetles researchers had characterized, some 300,000 at that time.

“造物主将现身……一方面带着对星辰的酷爱,一方面带着对甲虫的酷爱。”出自生物学家和无神论者 J. B. S.霍尔丹的这番妙语,在 1949年确实道出了当时研究人员所能描述出来的相当数量(约 30万)的甲虫。

Now we know of about 400,000 beetles. And scientists have just added 98 previously unlisted beetle species to that tally, as well as one rediscovered species thought to be extinct.

现在我们已知的甲虫约有 40万。科学家们刚刚在该记录上加了 98种以前未收录的甲虫品种,以及一个曾被认为已经灭绝但又重新被发现的种类。

The beetles hail from Bali, Java and Lombok in Indonesia, showing once again that islands can be major cradles of biodiversity. The 99 species can be found in the open access journal ZooKeys, and in the leaf litter of Indonesian forests.

这些来自巴厘岛、印度尼西亚的爪哇岛和龙目岛的甲虫,再次说明了岛屿可能是生物多样性的主要发源地。99种甲虫可以在公共期刊《动物之谜》中以及印尼森林的落叶中见到。

But those forests are falling, to make room for people and palm oil plantations. With the forests go the forest creatures, including unique fauna like these newly discovered beetles. And there no doubt exist many, many more unknown species, as the tropical forests of Indonesia remain largely unexploreddespite expeditions since at least the time of naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer with Darwin of evolution via natural selection.

但这些森林正在退减,给人类和棕榈油种植园腾出空间。随着森林退减森林里的生灵也随之而亡,其中包括一些稀有物种,比如这些新发现的甲虫。毫无疑问的是,尽管至少从博物学家艾尔弗雷德·罗素·华莱士和达尔文共同探索“物竞天择”的进化论时期,就已经开始了探险式探索,但印度尼西亚的热带雨林仍很大程度上未被开发——因而还有非常多的未知物种存在。

The question is, will deforestation wipe away the other unknown insectsand nematodes, microbes and other uncharismatic microfaunabefore we had a chance to know them?

问题是,滥砍滥伐会不会毁灭了其它的未知昆虫、线虫、细菌及其它不讨人喜欢的微型动物群种——导致我们连认识它们的机会都没有