Sept. 17, 2008 -- A new species of Pacific iguana has been uncovered by Australian and U.S. researchers, but already its future is looking grim. In a paper published online in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, the team shows there are three living species of Brachylophus iguanas, not two as indicated in current taxonomy. The new species is named Brachylophus bulabula after the Fijian word for hello. "In the reptile world the Fijian iguanas are iconic," said lead author Scott Keogh, of the Australian National University's School of Botany and Zoology. "To discover a new species of them is very exciting." But he said the new species and its cousins are under threat from habitat loss and attacks by feral cats and mongooses. Two species of the iguana are already extinct, having been eaten out of existence about 2800 years ago by the earliest arrivals on the island, Keogh said. The surviving three species, the B. vitiensis,, or Fiji crested iguana, is listed as critically endangered and the other two as status unknown, due to lack of information about their numbers. The new species was uncovered after analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of 61 iguanas from 13 islands. The study shows the B. bulabula iguana is genetically and physically different from the two other species. |
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