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Our planet hosts an almost unbelievable diversity of living organisms. The description of species, i.e. of the fundamental units of biodiversity, is a precondition for any meaningful subsequent biological research and for the efficient protection of earth’s biota.
The challenge of describing numerous newly discovered species is also eminent at the Museum of Natural History Berlin. The colourful shrimp and snail species pictured on this page for example have only been discovered during the last couple of years in two deep lakes of the Indonesian island Sulawesi. These species only occur in the lakes and are increasingly threatened by the heavy degradation of their environment. They can only be listed as endangered and protected species once they have been scientifically described, though.
The description of new species is a time-consuming and expensive task – ever more often e.g. elaborate genetic analyses are necessary. In addition the description of a species is often just a first step leading to more comprehensive research on its behaviour, ecology and distribution. Frequently it is very difficult to obtain sufficient funding for these basic taxonomic tasks. The major scientific funding bodies e.g. do usually not consider grant applications merely for species descriptions despite their considerable importance for biology and conservation policy.
You can help to improve things: By agreeing to become the sponsor of a name for a new species you will significantly support important taxonomic research at the Museum of Natural History Berlin. At the same time you have the chance to „immortalize“ yourself or any person dear to you. The description will be published in renowned journals and your name will always be linked to the species. Your donation will be exclusively employed in funding taxonomic research, part of the money will also be provided to our collaborators in the species’ country of origin.
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