10 New Species Discovered in 2014: Cartwheeling Spider, Psychedelic Sea Slug And More

Last year's most attractive plants and animals include one giant stick insect and one frog giving birth to live tadpoles, according to nationalgeographic.

One of them was a new species of pufferfish, Torquigener albomaculosus. For two decades, divers in the coast of Japan discovered the mysterious "crop circles" on the floor of the ocean, which, in 2014, was discovered to be the new species.

Discovered as one of the top 10 new species of the year, since 2008, the State University of New York's International Institute for Species Exploration recognized the "weirdest and most fascinating plants and animals".

Other species in the list of animals included a cartwheeling spider, a frog that gives birth to live tadpoles, and a sea slug with crazy colors.

To honour Carl Linnaeus's upcoming birthday, the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry published a list on May 21 of the top 10 new species discovered in 2014. The list has been published every year since 2008 as part of the bigger attempt to record an estimated 10 million species that have not been found so far, according to salon.

Interestingly, every year about 18,000 new species are discovered. Of these, about two million plant and animal species have been labeled, while there are ten million more that will be found soon, says Quentin Wheeler, founding director of the institute for species exploration.

Still, even before we manage to find them, there are dangers from habitat loss, pollution, and poaching.

"I'm concerned that with the biodiversity crisis happening, we are losing species at least as fast as we are discovering them," says Wheeler. "The importance of this list is that it draws attention to discoveries that are made even as species are going extinct at an alarming rate."