Biodiversity Boom or Bust?

Like the recent identification of new plant and fungi species by Kew Gardens, the revealing of 503 'new' animals by London's Natural History Museum (NHM) paints an misleadingly rosy picture (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/30/moths-to-monkeys-503-new-species-identified-by-uk-scientists). A new species of monkey (the Popa langur), 9 new snakes and a lungless worm salamader (that could take in enough oxygen via its skin -although this is based on the one specimen that has been found)! What's not to like! We have to remember, however, that identifying new species is one of the things that taxonomists (Kew Gardens and NHM have some of the finest) do. Taxonomists have recently, been aided in this process by new technologies, including DNA bar-coding. I'm excited by the findings, but note with some trepidation that some were based on specimens (like the 'new' monkey), that have been in the museum collections for up to 100 years. So, although it looks as if we have more species than was formerly thought, things are likely to be disappearing before we have even recognised them.