Top 10 newly discovered species for 2018

Orangutans are the only great apes in Asia. In 2001, the orangutans of Sumatra and Borneo were recognized as two distinct species. Now, researchers have found a third: the Tapanuli orangutan, which lives in the southern range of Sumatran orangutans, in Batang Toru. They are, in fact, the most imperiled great apes in the world. Only an estimated 800 individuals exist in a fragmented habitat.

Towering up to 40 meters (130 feet) high and weighing an estimated 56,000 kilos (62 tons), this majestic tree, named Dinizia jueirana-facao, was found in the Atlantic forest in northern Espirito Santo, Brazil. Large in dimensions, the tree is limited in numbers – only 25 of the trees exist, making it a critically endangered species.

This tiny beetle is called Nymphister kronaueri and lives among ants in Costa Rica. The beetle is only 1.5 millimeters long (0.05 inches) and its body is the precise size, shape and color of the abdomen of a worker ant. When the nomadic ants move to a new location, the beetle travels along, using its mouthparts to grab onto the abdomen of its host, letting the ant do all the walking.

The dark abyss of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific contains the deepest spot in the world's oceans. And that's where the pseudoliparis swirei was found, a small, tadpole-like fish that belongs to the snailfish family and measures 12 centimeters (4 inches) in length. It's the deepest-dwelling fish ever recorded, captured at depths of between 6,800 and 7,900 meters (22,000 and 26,000 feet).

Most plants capture solar energy to feed themselves via photosynthesis. A few, like the newly discovered S. sugimotoi, get their sustenance from other organisms. In this case, the plant is symbiotic with a fungus, which it derives nutrition from without harming it. Its delicate pink blossoms only appear during a short flowering peroid, on Japan's Ishigaki Island.

This invertebrate, about 5 centimeters (2 inches) in length, was spotted in the glacial waters of the Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica. It's an amphipod called Epimeria quasimodo, in reference to its somewhat humped back. It has incredible spines and vivid colors and its crested adornments are reminiscent of mythological dragons.

When a submarine volcano erupted off the coast of El Hierro in the Canary Islands, it wiped out much of the existing marine ecosystem. But scientists have found the first colonizers of this deposited area: Thiolava veneris, a new species of proteobacteria producing long, hair-like structures composed of bacterial cells within a sheath and forming a massive white mat.

Scientists recovered fossils in Queensland, Australia to a previously unknown lion-like marsupial that roamed Australia's open forest in the late Oligocene age, which ended about 23 million years ago. It was about the size of a Siberian husky dog and spent part of its time in trees. Its teeth suggest it was not completely reliant on meat but was, rather, an omnivore.

This single-celled protist was discovered on a brain coral in an aquarium in San Diego, California, USA. The geographic origin of the species in the wild is not known. It's called ancoracysta twistan and is a predatory flagellate that uses its whip-like flagella to propel itself, and unusual harpoon-like organelles to immobilize other protists on which it feeds.

A new species of troglobitic beetle adapted to life in the permanent darkness of caves was discovered in a cave in Du'an, Guangxi Province, China. Called Xuedytes bellus, the beetle only grows to about 9 millimeters (half an inch) in length and is striking in the dramatic elongation of its head and the body segment immediately behind the head.