National Geographic bites my style this week with a photo gallery of newly discovered species in Brazil's Cerrado, a wooded grassland that's seen an increasing threat of urban and agricultural encroachment.Most stories lead with the "legless lizard" discovered there, but we all know that that's just a snake. Among the fourteen new species found in the Cerrado are a tiny woodpecker, and a fat-tailed mouse opossum.
The discoveries, along with the documentation of several endangered species in the region, renewed a push by conservationists to develop a management plan for the area, according to MSNBC.
More important is a species of trapdoor spider, actually discovered in 2007, that has only just now been named - after Neil Young. The trapdoor spider is so named because it fashions a plug to cover the entrance of its burrow, and will wait under it to pounce at passing prey. Jason Bond named the spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi because he admires Young's music as well as his political activism.
