The 2017 Top 10 Alphabetical order by scientific name - species are not ranked

"Sorting Hat" Spider (Eriovixia gryffindori)
Unexpected Katydid (Eulophophyllum kirki)
Omnivorous Root Rat (Gracilimus radix)
414-legged Millipede (Illacme tobini)
"Dragon" Ant (Pheidole drogon)
Freshwater Stingray (Potamotrygon rex)
Swimming Centipede (Scolopendra cataracta)
Bush Tomato (Solanum ossicruentum)
Endangered Orchid (Telipogon diabolicus)
"Churro" Marine Worm (Xenoturbella churro)

America's Top Environmental College

ESF At-a-Glance | Rankings
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Map view of species locations (Google Maps)

2017 Species Selection Committee

Members of the international selection committee are:

Dr. Antonio G. Valdecasas, chair — Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC,Spain
Dr. Cristina Damborenea — Museo de La Plata, Argentina
Dr. James A. Macklin — Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada
Dr. Ellinor Michel — Natural History Museum, United Kingdon
Prof. Aharon Oren — The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Dr. Alan Paton — Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, United Kingdom
Dr. Andrew Polaszek— Natural History Museum, United Kingdom
Dr. Menno Schilthuizen — Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Leiden University, Netherlands
Dr. John Sullivan — NIH/NLM/NCBI
Dr. Zhi-Qiang Zhang — Landcare Research, New Zealand

animals and plants

Click on the images above to access species pages.

The ESF International Institute for Species Exploration

IISE website

The International Institute for Species Exploration is dedicated to

the exploration, inventory, and classification of earth’s species
public awareness of the biodiversity crisis
advocacy for the important roles played by taxonomy and natural history museums
the advancement of cybertaxonomy and the application of cyber and digital tools to accelerate and improve comparative morphology, descriptive taxonomy, and phylogenetic classification

The Top 10 New Species list is released around May 23 each year in to coincide with the birthday of Carolus Linnaeus. Linnaeus is the “Father of Taxonomy” and his work in the mid-18th century was the beginning point for “modern” naming and classification of plants and animals.

What on Earth book

What on Earth?
by Quentin Wheeler and Sara Pennak

What on Earth? is a compendium of the 100 coolest, weirdest, and most intriguing new species of this century as determined by the International Institute for Species Exploration.