TeamEarth

“A frog, a gecko, a bird and a wallaby.” Sounds like a pitch for a Sesame Street spinoff*. But it’s actually a list of some of the species, probably new to science, discovered on a recent expedition to Indonesia, according to Conservation International and the National Geographic Society.

Scientists undertook the expedition in 2008, heading to the Foja Mountains on the island of New Guinea [map]. There, they found species including:

• A tree frog with a long, Pinocchio-style nose;
• A “dwarf wallaby,” the smallest member of the kangaroo family documented in the world;
• A pigeon with striking red, white and grayish-blue feathers;
• A gargoyle-like gecko with yellow eyes.

View this slideshow to see pictures of some of these remarkable species.

CI, National Geographic, and the Smithsonian Institution (a partner on this project) are releasing these photos during the same week as the International Day for Biological Diversity. That’s a day when we celebrate the motley (but indispensable) crew of species on our planet – about 2 million and counting – and think about what we can do to protect them.

It’s not just about cute animals (though they are so cute). It’s about humans, too. Protecting biodiversity also protects the benefits that other species on Earth give us, from chemical compounds used in medicines to the economic benefits that indigenous peoples see when we travel to  see all these cool critters in action.

One of the best ways to protect biodiversity is to protect the tropical forests of the world, which contain an estimated 50 percent of the world’s species. These forests also play a huge role in regulating climate change – the phenomenon we’re taking on here at Team Earth.

A useful action you can take to protect those forests is to use less paper. It’s crazy simple, but if half of all Americans used just 25% less paper, it’d be as if 568,000 cars had never come off the assembly line.

Protect forests. Protect the cutest dang animals you ever done seen (and the ugly ones, too). Pledge today to Do More or Do Less for the environment.

* Any time you mention Sesame Street, it’s probably a good idea to link to this.