A new species of velvet worm has been found in the Karoo region of South Africa – a first for this vast, dry landscape in the south-west of the country.
The remarkable discovery was made in March 2022 by Stellenbosch University student Rohan Barnard, who was searching for ants and other invertebrates on a farm in the Swartberg Mountains between the towns of Calitzdorp and Oudtshoorn when he stumbled upon a small slate-black creature buried in damp leaf litter near a river.
“I had a basic knowledge of the Cape velvet worms, having found one for the first time on Table Mountain in 2019,” says Barnard. Little did he know at the time that he had just uncovered a new species of velvet worm, now aptly named Rohan's velvet worm – or Peripatopsis barnardi (P. barnardi).
Described in the journal Evolution and Ecology, the discovery suggests that this now-arid region was once covered by ancient forests, shedding light on the area’s prehistoric past.
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An extraordinary find
Velvet worms are fascinating animals. These 'living fossils' – organisms that have persisted with little to no change for a very long period of time – belong to a lineage that dates back over 500 million years to the Cambrian period.
Today, modern velvet worms live in damp, moist habitats in areas that were originally part of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. In Africa, they are mainly found in prehistoric Afro temperate forest patches that cling on in deep gorges.
According to evolutionary biologist and lead author of the study Professor Savel Daniels – who, after hearing about Barnard's discovery, visited the area in July 2022 and collected more specimens for analysis – it's remarkable that P. barnardi is still around today.
"The origin of these forest patches can be traced to the early Miocene, about 23 to 15 million years ago, when the region used to be temperate and sub-tropical," says Daniels. "During the late Miocene, however, the region underwent significant climatic changes, with a decrease in rainfall due to the advent of the proto Benguela current along the West Coast, and two geotectonic uplifting events."
Daniels and his team identified P. barnardi through DNA sequencing and microscopic analysis, revealing it not only as a new species but also the first velvet worm found in the Karoo.
"It is incredible to realise that I've uncovered a living fossil," says Barnard. "It is as if I have found a missing link that we did not even know about. It gives me hope that there is still so much left to discover. But it also makes me worried for the future, that we will lose animals and plants to extinction that we did not even know existed."
Top image: Swartberg Mountains. Credit: Getty
Find out more about the study: Perched on the Plateau: Speciation in a Cape Fold Mountain Velvet Worm Clade, With the Description of Seven New Species (Onychophora: Peripatopsidae: Peripatopsis) From South Africa
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