For most people, discovering new species seems like an extraordinary event, something that happens only once in a lifetime or at least something very rare. However, for some groups of organisms, particularly understudied ones, it’s actually very easy to come across a new species to science and perhaps even more to a particular country.

In today’s door of the advent calendar, I want to give you an example from our group on how we found two new annelid species to Norway just by attending one of our student’s Master’s defence.

Sunniva did her Master’s thesis on meiofauna diversity in the Oslofjord, specifically on the distribution of meiofaunal Annelida and Arthropoda living on artificial and natural beaches. When I attended her defence, I was about to finish compiling a list of meiofaunal polychaetes already found in Norway for the MeioSkag project. So, when I saw that she had found Lindrilus rubropharyngeus and Protodrilus ciliatus in one of the natural beaches close to Oslo, I suspected that I hadn’t found any records of these species in this country. I went to double-check it and it was true! Even though both species have been recorded on the Swedish West Coast, they have never been found (or at least recorded) in Norway. She had just found two new species to Norway without knowing!

The next step is to register these species in databases such as GBIF or Artskart, so that the records become publicly available, and more people can use this information. Species are the basis for work on biodiversity, and we can only protect what we know, so it’s crucial to find out which ones are where. In a time where we are in danger of losing species more quickly than they can be discovered, new findings provide vital information to fight against biodiversity loss.

What else is out there? We don’t know, but one thing is for certain: the CEG group will continue to work towards discovering it!

Featured image: VisitOSLO / F.W. Foto, available at https://www.visitnorway.no/reisemal/ostlandet/oslo/oyhopping/