A New Kind of New Yorker, One With 82 Legs - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Warm & Fuzzy · 07-24-2002, 02:43 PM

I read this in today's edition of the NYT and thought it was pretty interesting...

=====================================
Scientists have discovered an altogether new creature in Central Park.

It is a centipede — which may be the world's smallest — and is the first new animal species found in Central Park in more than a century, scientists say.

The newly found centipede is so unusual that it makes up a new genus, as well as a species, said Dr. Kefyn M. Catley, a Rutgers University professor and staff scientist for the American Museum of Natural History.

A species is a group of similar organisms that under natural conditions breed only with one another. (Dogs are a species.) A genus, a broader category, may consist of 100 or more species, or, as in the case of the city's new centipede, only one. (The Canis genus includes dogs, wolves and coyotes.) Centipede, like mammal, is a class. (A giraffe is both a genus and a species.)

And Central Park may hold more discoveries. A gnat discovered there was unknown to museum scientists and is now being studied in Germany. Dr. Catley said that it could also turn out to be a new species.

Museum researchers found the new centipede, along with many other tiny beings, in leaf litter — piles of broken twigs, fungi and decomposing plant and tree leaves mixed with soil. Leaf litter is perhaps the "richest and most complex community in the woods," said Dr. Eleanor Sterling, director of the natural history museum's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. It is, she said, "predators, scavengers, vegetarians living together in a very complicated system."

Leaf litter accumulates very quickly, said Liz Johnson, the director of the museum's biodiversity program for the New York region. In one year, five tons can pile up in two and a half acres of woods. Invertebrates consume it and keep it from burying the forest, and there they are as numerous as litter. There are, for instance, some 50,000 springtails (an insect) in one square yard of litter, and that is only one of the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of invertebrates found there.

The Central Park Conservancy, which is restoring its woods, asked the museum for help in determining what, precisely, is living there in order to best preserve it, Ms. Johnson said.

To find their leaf litter, museum scientists had only to walk across the street and go to the North Woods and the Ramble.

"We didn't know what was out there," Ms. Johnson said. "We wanted to see who's out there in the spring, who's out there in the fall and the summer."

Four times — once a season during 1998 — they collected piles of leaf litter and carried them back to the museum for the painstaking task of separating the creatures from the soil and plant detritus, and dividing the minute animals into categories like worms, beetles and millipedes and centipedes.

The museum sent a collection of Central Park millipedes and centipedes to Richard L. Hoffman, the curator for invertebrates at the Virginia Museum of Natural History. After he had studied them, Dr. Hoffman sent several he could not identify to scientists in Italy who specialize in centipedes and millipedes. They declared that the centipede was a first and named it after him: Nannarrup hoffmani, or Hoffman's dwarf centipede.

"I was astonished," Dr. Hoffman said. The odds against it surviving in a densely populated city — and, in particular, the constant trampling of millions of Central Park visitors — were astronomical, he said.

Nannarrup hoffmani is 10.3 millimeters long, or about four-tenths of an inch. Centipedes generally range from 3 centimeters, or 1.2 inches, to as long as 14 inches.

All centipedes are predators with poisonous fangs, and eat any animal they can get their jaws around. The new discovery is no exception. "They're totally mindless killing machines," said Dr. Hoffman, who vastly prefers the more peaceable vegetarian millipedes.

Researchers found 10 specimens of Nannarrup hoffmani in the Ramble and the North Woods. Eight are juveniles, one is just a severed head and scattered body parts and one is an adult female. Like the juveniles, it has 41 pairs of legs, an unusually large number for such a small centipede. It is light yellow, a common centipede coloring, with antennas that are proportionally short. The female's interior contained sperm. "What's exciting is that it is obviously capable of reproducing," Ms. Johnson said.

It resembles centipedes from Asia and China more than native ones, Dr. Hoffman said.

"Probably it was brought in with potted soil," he said. "Nobody in Manhattan is native. Exotics have displaced native North American species, just like we did the Indians."

New species have been discovered in New York State before. The most recent was a type of sawfly found in 1998 in the pitch pine woods of Albany by Dr. Timothy L. McCabe, curator of entomology at the New York State Museum. He said that he could not remember the last time a new genus was found in the state, but that the last new species found in Central Park was a cutworm moth discovered about 120 years ago.

Most North American animals were classified between 1820 and 1920, the golden age of taxonomy, or biological classification.

The discovery of new species of invertebrates is common in tropical rain forests and wild areas throughout the world, Dr. Hoffman said. So scientists rarely even raise an eyebrow when they hear of a new one.

Only 1.5 million of the estimated 10 million to 50 million invertebrates have been identified, Dr. Hoffman said. There is a poignant side to the finding of Nannarrup hoffmani, as least to Dr. Hoffman. Research money for the study of invertebrates is drying up and science-minded young people are choosing molecular biology instead. At the same time, he said, the destruction of rain forests and the development of wilderness are killing off huge numbers of invertebrate species, which will vanish, unknown.

"When I die," he said, "nobody will replace me."

Ms. Johnson said the discovery of Nannarrup hoffmani gives new reason to appreciate the virtues of natural mess in parks.

"If they rake all the leaves, remove all the fallen twigs and branches, new species — and the regular guys — will not survive," she said. "The whole system will cease to function. We need to appreciate unmanicured nature."

XoVanillaRain90oX · 07-24-2002, 02:45 PM

Just what we need, more bugs!

JethroSimpson · 07-24-2002, 05:39 PM

I'll look out for it, I'm going to NY next week!

AllIWantIsYourClutch · 07-24-2002, 09:55 PM

*walks*

*squish*

Oops.

Kay Scarpetta · 07-24-2002, 10:38 PM

LOL amy

AllIWantIsYourClutch · 07-24-2002, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kay Scarpetta
LOL amy

I know I'm funny.

Kay Scarpetta · 07-25-2002, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dr. Lu Delgado
I know I'm funny.

Yo.

Ahahahaha....Marino is getting the best of me..

Montana Ponine · 07-25-2002, 12:00 PM

Whoa, 82 legs???? Kinda cool....

XoVanillaRain90oX · 07-25-2002, 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Montana Ponine
Whoa, 82 legs???? Kinda cool....

Anything with 2 legs freaks me out! LoL

Montana Ponine · 07-25-2002, 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by XoVanillaRain90oX

Anything with 2 legs freaks me out! LoL

LOL, um, but Lisa, I don't know how many legs you have, but I have 2... is that normal? Am I freaking you out?

Just messin with you, Lisa.

Kay Scarpetta · 07-25-2002, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Montana Ponine
LOL, um, but Lisa, I don't know how many legs you have, but I have 2... is that normal? Am I freaking you out?

Warm & Fuzzy · 07-25-2002, 08:28 PM

Amy killed a centipede!

Warm & Fuzzy · 07-25-2002, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Montana Ponine

LOL, um, but Lisa, I don't know how many legs you have, but I have 2... is that normal? Am I freaking you out?

Just messin with you, Lisa.

LOL, it ain't a good thing messin' with people's minds like that, Marisa.

Montana Ponine · 07-25-2002, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jo's the bomb
LOL, it ain't a good thing messin' with people's minds like that, Marisa.

I know and I'm so ashamed!!!!!!

Warm & Fuzzy · 07-25-2002, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Montana Ponine

I know and I'm so ashamed!!!!!!

One can imagine.

07-24-2002, 02:43 PM	#1
Warm & Fuzzy Member Forum Fanatic Join Date: Feb 02, 2001 Posts: 10,254	A New Kind of New Yorker, One With 82 Legs I read this in today's edition of the NYT and thought it was pretty interesting... ===================================== Scientists have discovered an altogether new creature in Central Park. It is a centipede — which may be the world's smallest — and is the first new animal species found in Central Park in more than a century, scientists say. The newly found centipede is so unusual that it makes up a new genus, as well as a species, said Dr. Kefyn M. Catley, a Rutgers University professor and staff scientist for the American Museum of Natural History. A species is a group of similar organisms that under natural conditions breed only with one another. (Dogs are a species.) A genus, a broader category, may consist of 100 or more species, or, as in the case of the city's new centipede, only one. (The Canis genus includes dogs, wolves and coyotes.) Centipede, like mammal, is a class. (A giraffe is both a genus and a species.) And Central Park may hold more discoveries. A gnat discovered there was unknown to museum scientists and is now being studied in Germany. Dr. Catley said that it could also turn out to be a new species. Museum researchers found the new centipede, along with many other tiny beings, in leaf litter — piles of broken twigs, fungi and decomposing plant and tree leaves mixed with soil. Leaf litter is perhaps the "richest and most complex community in the woods," said Dr. Eleanor Sterling, director of the natural history museum's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. It is, she said, "predators, scavengers, vegetarians living together in a very complicated system." Leaf litter accumulates very quickly, said Liz Johnson, the director of the museum's biodiversity program for the New York region. In one year, five tons can pile up in two and a half acres of woods. Invertebrates consume it and keep it from burying the forest, and there they are as numerous as litter. There are, for instance, some 50,000 springtails (an insect) in one square yard of litter, and that is only one of the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of invertebrates found there. The Central Park Conservancy, which is restoring its woods, asked the museum for help in determining what, precisely, is living there in order to best preserve it, Ms. Johnson said. To find their leaf litter, museum scientists had only to walk across the street and go to the North Woods and the Ramble. "We didn't know what was out there," Ms. Johnson said. "We wanted to see who's out there in the spring, who's out there in the fall and the summer." Four times — once a season during 1998 — they collected piles of leaf litter and carried them back to the museum for the painstaking task of separating the creatures from the soil and plant detritus, and dividing the minute animals into categories like worms, beetles and millipedes and centipedes. The museum sent a collection of Central Park millipedes and centipedes to Richard L. Hoffman, the curator for invertebrates at the Virginia Museum of Natural History. After he had studied them, Dr. Hoffman sent several he could not identify to scientists in Italy who specialize in centipedes and millipedes. They declared that the centipede was a first and named it after him: Nannarrup hoffmani, or Hoffman's dwarf centipede. "I was astonished," Dr. Hoffman said. The odds against it surviving in a densely populated city — and, in particular, the constant trampling of millions of Central Park visitors — were astronomical, he said. Nannarrup hoffmani is 10.3 millimeters long, or about four-tenths of an inch. Centipedes generally range from 3 centimeters, or 1.2 inches, to as long as 14 inches. All centipedes are predators with poisonous fangs, and eat any animal they can get their jaws around. The new discovery is no exception. "They're totally mindless killing machines," said Dr. Hoffman, who vastly prefers the more peaceable vegetarian millipedes. Researchers found 10 specimens of Nannarrup hoffmani in the Ramble and the North Woods. Eight are juveniles, one is just a severed head and scattered body parts and one is an adult female. Like the juveniles, it has 41 pairs of legs, an unusually large number for such a small centipede. It is light yellow, a common centipede coloring, with antennas that are proportionally short. The female's interior contained sperm. "What's exciting is that it is obviously capable of reproducing," Ms. Johnson said. It resembles centipedes from Asia and China more than native ones, Dr. Hoffman said. "Probably it was brought in with potted soil," he said. "Nobody in Manhattan is native. Exotics have displaced native North American species, just like we did the Indians." New species have been discovered in New York State before. The most recent was a type of sawfly found in 1998 in the pitch pine woods of Albany by Dr. Timothy L. McCabe, curator of entomology at the New York State Museum. He said that he could not remember the last time a new genus was found in the state, but that the last new species found in Central Park was a cutworm moth discovered about 120 years ago. Most North American animals were classified between 1820 and 1920, the golden age of taxonomy, or biological classification. The discovery of new species of invertebrates is common in tropical rain forests and wild areas throughout the world, Dr. Hoffman said. So scientists rarely even raise an eyebrow when they hear of a new one. Only 1.5 million of the estimated 10 million to 50 million invertebrates have been identified, Dr. Hoffman said. There is a poignant side to the finding of Nannarrup hoffmani, as least to Dr. Hoffman. Research money for the study of invertebrates is drying up and science-minded young people are choosing molecular biology instead. At the same time, he said, the destruction of rain forests and the development of wilderness are killing off huge numbers of invertebrate species, which will vanish, unknown. "When I die," he said, "nobody will replace me." Ms. Johnson said the discovery of Nannarrup hoffmani gives new reason to appreciate the virtues of natural mess in parks. "If they rake all the leaves, remove all the fallen twigs and branches, new species — and the regular guys — will not survive," she said. "The whole system will cease to function. We need to appreciate unmanicured nature."
	__________________ "To the world, you may be one person, but to one person, you may be the world." ~Unknown Last edited by Warm & Fuzzy; 07-24-2002 at 02:44 PM.

07-24-2002, 02:45 PM	#2
XoVanillaRain90oX youre RAD <3<3 Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Jun 14, 2001 Location: SwEdEn BaBii! Posts: 3,416	Just what we need, more bugs!
	__________________ <3Lisa With one look in your eyes.. & suddenly I knew, I'd fallen for you Proud PLAY fan, that's right 2001 - forever.

07-24-2002, 05:39 PM	#3
JethroSimpson Member Senior Member Join Date: Aug 01, 2001 Location: England,UK Posts: 1,080	I'll look out for it, I'm going to NY next week!
	__________________ My Brand New Diff'rent Strokes site is now at- http://chrisdoyle0.tripod.com/ ________________ _______________ Chris D.

07-24-2002, 10:38 PM	#5
Kay Scarpetta Defy Gravity 8.26.05 Forum Superstar Join Date: Jul 04, 2001 Location: La Vie Boheme Posts: 28,013	LOL amy
	__________________ The people who think they know everything about Broadway make me laugh. They've never seen a Broadway play in their life. "oh mi godddd RENT's a mooovie! lyke 525600 minuuuuuuutes!" No. To be a Broadway Freak, you must live, eat, sleep, study, devout, think, obsess, dream, believe Broadway. You must know original & revival casts, soundtracks, performance runs, dates, theatres, numbers, how many Tony Awards A Chorus Line won. You must be Broadway. That's right bitches. I AM Broadway.

07-24-2002, 09:55 PM	#4
AllIWantIsYourClutch peaceout. Forum Icon Join Date: Aug 02, 2001 Location: Illinois. Posts: 53,424	walks squish Oops.

07-25-2002, 12:00 PM	#8
Montana Ponine Tragically Beautiful Forum 4000 Club Member Join Date: Aug 18, 2001 Location: Sondheimville Posts: 4,529	Whoa, 82 legs???? Kinda cool....

07-25-2002, 08:28 PM	#12
Warm & Fuzzy Member Forum Fanatic Join Date: Feb 02, 2001 Posts: 10,254	Amy killed a centipede!