Phyllodesmium acanthorhinum sea slug - one of 18,000 new animals and plants that have been discovered by scientists over the past year.
Phyllodesmium acanthorhinum sea slug - one of 18,000 new animals and plants that have been discovered by scientists over the past year.
Scientists pick 10 of most weird and wondrous life forms recently found.
They perform feats of amazing acrobatics, create intricate works of art and some just look weird - but until last year these species were completely unknown to science.
Now scientists have singled out 10 of the 18,000 new animals and plants discovered by scientists over the past year for their remarkable appearance and behaviour.
The State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry has identified what it considers to be the top 10 new species of 2015 in its annual assessment of discoveries. The species are listed in alphabetical order by scientific name and are not ranked.
They include a cartwheeling spider discovered in Morocco that has an acrobatic solution to escape danger by spinning away.
A new species of pufferfish found off the coast of Amami-Oshima in Japan was found to be responsible for creating geometric designs on the sea floor that have baffled marine scientists for decades. The male fish creates these intricate patterns as nests to attract females.
Also on the list is a feathered dinosaur that lived 66 million years ago that has been nicknamed the "chicken from hell". The 1.5m tall and 3m long extinct creature was discovered fossilised in rock formations in North and South Dakota. It got its horrifying nickname because it showed a strange mixture of both bird and dinosaur features.
Two of the newly discovered animals also showed unusual parenting habits.
One, a frog from Indonesia, gives birth to live tadpoles rather than laying eggs like other amphibians.
1. A spawning nest (mystery circle) of the Torquigener albomaculosus pufferfish.
2. Tillandsia religiosa Bromeliad in natural habitat.
2. Tillandsia religiosa bromeliad.
A formidable predatory wasp found in China kills spiders to feed its young before using the dead bodies of ants to protect its offspring from predators.
Scientists believe there may be up to 10 million species still to be discovered, although some studies have estimated the Earth holds between two million and 8.7 million species of complex life.
Currently just 1.3 million species have been characterised and named by scientists. Around 18,000 new species are discovered every year.
The college has released a list of the top 10 new discoveries from the natural world every year since 2008.
Also on this year's list is a 22cm-long stick insect from Vietnam and a colourful blue, red and gold sea slug from off the coast of Japan.
A parasitic plant that grows in the mountains of the Philippines that has an appearance much like coral, was also a surprise discovery.
A "living fossil" multicellular animal that looks like mushroom and lives 975m down on the sea floor off the coast of Australia may be an entirely new phylum - a taxonomic rank that groups organisms of similar morphology.
Finally, a red and green plant used in Christmas celebrations by villagers in Mexico was also found to be a new species.
