Cattle ranch near Apuí, Amazonas State, Brazil. (IMAGE)
Caption
Cattle ranch near Apuí, Amazonas State, Brazil. These livestock have been raised in recently deforested areas. Pressure from farming and logging activities are leading to an unprecedented deforestation rate of the Amazon rainforest and threatening local fauna and flora. Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History researcher Murilo Pastana and his colleagues have discovered and described two new species of Amazonian fish—one with striking red-orange fins and the other so small it is technically considered a miniature fish species—in a paper published today, May 16, in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Both species inhabit waters located at the bleeding edge of human encroachment into the Amazon rainforest roughly 25 miles north of the Brazilian city of Apuí.
Credit
Murilo N.L. Pastana & Willian M. Ohara
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