An expedition to the forests of Sierra Leone, West Africa, revealed two species of crabs new to science and two species not seen in more than half a century. The research team found an Afzelius’s crab (Afrithelphusa afzelii), which has had no recorded sighting for 225 years (since 1796), and the Sierra Leone crab, not seen in 66 years. Also found were two species of crabs belonging to the genus of the common river crab in West Africa. Only one species of this genus was known to exist in Sierra Leone before now. The quest for crabs was sponsored by the conservation organization Re:wild, as the Sierra Leone crab is number eight on Re:wild’s 25 most-wanted lost species list. So far, their Search for Lost Species program has rediscovered seven other lost species. On a recent expedition to the remote forests of Sierra Leone, West Africa, researchers found two species of crabs new to science and rediscovered two species not seen in more than half a century. For 23 days, Pierre A. Mvogo Ndongo, a researcher from the University of Douala in Cameroon, trekked through remote rainforests in search of the Sierra Leone crab (Afrithelphusa leonensis ), a unique […]
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