This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide

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Newly registered plant / animal / microbial species in WoRMS / GBIF / Zoological Record each week, with discovery location, describer, morphological description, and whether the species is under extinction threat

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-07-03

173 new species in one week

This weekly-format article covers newly described or registered species from June 26 through July 3, 2026, led by a new octocoral family and other high-signal discoveries across animals, plants, fungi, and diatoms.

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-26

13 new species named Friday: an orchid at risk

Friday's shortened coverage window yielded 13 confirmed newly named species across ZooKeys, MycoKeys, PhytoKeys, and Zootaxa, led by *Pleurothallis pembertonii*, an Ecuadorian cloud-forest orchid already recommended as Critically Endangered.

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-25

8 new species named Thursday: seven new fungal genera rewrite a marine family, and a striped river fish from Zhangjiajie

Thursday June 25, 2026 brought 8 confirmed new species plus 3 further likely additions across MycoKeys, ZooKeys, Zoosystematics and Evolution, Zootaxa, WoRMS, Candollea, and Nordic Journal of Botany. The day's centerpiece is a 202-page Halosphaeriaceae monograph in MycoKeys 135 erecting 7 new genera and 14 new combinations in a major marine-fungal reclassification, alongside the single new species Ocostaspora japonica from Tokyo Bay driftwood. Other new taxa include Acrossocheilus zhangjiajiensis (a barred stream fish from Zhangjiajie), three Trilacuna goblin spiders from Sichuan and Hubei, two Baja California polychaetes, a New Zealand soft coral, two Annonaceae trees from Papua New Guinea, and a Pampa rock-dwelling Sinningia.

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-24

54 new species named Wednesday: a Critically Endangered bromeliad found with Brazil's Pataxó people, five Indian mantises, and a new cave-shrimp genus from the Caribbean

Wednesday June 24, 2026 delivered 54 new species and three new genera across Zootaxa, Phytotaxa, MycoKeys, ZooKeys, EJT, and WoRMS — headlined by Cryptanthus pataxoanus (CR), a marbled Atlantic Forest bromeliad described in partnership with Brazil's Pataxó indigenous community. Other standouts include five Oxypilinae mantises from India's Western Ghats, three Caribbean anchialine cave mysids plus the new genus Chelitrapezura, a new mycorrhizal genus (Durabilispora) from Poland's Tatra Mountains, and five new ladybirds in the Chinese Oenopia revision.

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-23

29 new species named Tuesday: a stag beetle from the Himalayas, cave creatures across three continents, and five endangered wildflowers from one Kerala hillside

Tuesday June 23 brought 29 new species across Zootaxa, ZooKeys, PhytoKeys, and MycoKeys — led by Dorcus liangi, a large stag beetle from Tibet's eastern Himalayas. Other standouts: a spider-web-textured soft coral from New Zealand's Fiordland fjords; five new Data Deficient Impatiens balsam wildflowers from a single Kerala hillside (Western Ghats); three cave millipedes from Laos including one with an anchor-shaped copulatory appendage; three new lynx spiders from the Yarlung Zangbu Grand Canyon; an eyeless cave ground beetle from a Guizhou karst cave; the first Nylanderia ant from the Galápagos; and three new brittlegill mushrooms from subtropical China.

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-22

Monday's haul: four sky-island chameleons from Mozambique, a ladybird in a termite nest, and 14 other species named June 22, 2026

Monday June 22 delivered 14 newly published species across three journal sources — headlined by four Critically Endangered Nadzikambia sylvan chameleons discovered on isolated mountaintops in northern Mozambique, each named for a separate "sky island" and each losing its forest fast. Also notable: Scymnus tshunsii, the first ladybird beetle confirmed to live inside termite nests, plus 12 invertebrates, moths, wasps, and fungi from Zootaxa 5837(1) and MycoKeys 134.

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-21

Falcidens porrectus: a new glistenworm from the Brazilian deep

Sunday June 21 brought a single new registration — Falcidens porrectus Miranda & Passos, 2026, the 39th species in a genus of worm-shaped molluscs that are not worms at all. Recovered at 1,324 metres off the coast of Espírito Santo, Brazil, it is distinguished from its closest relative by large arrow-shaped sclerites and the absence of a midventral suture line.

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-20

Acutigebia succinacia: a new mud shrimp from Japan

Saturday June 20 logged one new species: Acutigebia succinacia, a seventh mud shrimp in its genus, described from four Pacific Japan sites and confirmed by morphology and 16S rRNA genetics.

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-19

71 new species named Friday: 57 Miocene microgastropods resurface after 15 million years, plus cave spiders, cliff primroses, and nudibranchs from New Caledonia

71 species named Friday: 57 Miocene gastropods, 4 Turkish cave spiders, 5 nudibranchs

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-18

22 new species named Thursday: five critically endangered cave ferns, a giant Bahamian isopod, and a jawless fish dead for 419 million years

Thursday June 18 yielded 22 confirmed new species across Magnolia Press (Phytotaxa 763(1) + Zootaxa 5834(1)), Pensoft's PhytoKeys and MycoKeys, WoRMS, and a Novataxa fossil entry. Highlights: Bathynomus apothecarius, a new giant deep-sea isopod from the Bahamas at 749 m; Asioaspis brachyotus, a new genus and family of jawless fish from the Early Devonian of Yunnan; six Polystichum cave ferns from a single Guangxi karst hill (five CR, one DD); Globularia elmasii, a single-locality globe-flower from southwestern Türkiye (CR); Oziroë imbricata, a desert bulb only findable during a desierto florido bloom event (VU); and Polystemma cualense, a CR Mexican climber whose type-locality population lost three individuals to land-clearing before publication. Conservation count: 7 CR, 1 VU, 2 DD, 10 Not Evaluated of 22 total.

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-17

45 new species named Wednesday: an Axinaea sweep across the Andes, a Japan-first deep-sea worm, and an endangered cave flower with a beard

45 new species: 11 Andean Axinaea, 8 China fungi, 13 insects, 9 marine registrations, 1 EN cave flower.

This Week's Newly Described Species Worldwide2026-06-16

33 new species named Tuesday — a Da Vinci amphipod, an Attenborough diatom, and three new gastropod genera in a single paper

Tuesday June 16 yielded 33 newly described species, including a 40-year time-series amphipod from the Northeast Atlantic's most-watched abyssal plain, an Antarctic diatom named after Sir David Attenborough, three new gastropod genera from a single Solariellidae monograph, and the first Cordulegastridae dragonfly described from Vietnam.

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