Cute but not cuddly, a colony of sea squirts dubbed “Skeleton panda ascidian” by divers after being discovered in waters off Okinawa Prefecture has been identified as a new species. The sea ...

RANGE: Yanbaru, a small area of forested woodlands in the northern mountainous region of the island of Okinawa, Japan THREATS: Destruction of forest habitat in Okinawa's northern jungles, where a ...

HABITAT: The species lives in the undisturbed subtropical, evergreen broadleaved forests of Yanbaru. Breeding habitat is mature forest at least 30 years old, with tall trees of more than eight inches ...

Akihito found the species among the fish he caught on Zamamijima and Iriomotejima islands in Okinawa Prefecture between 2001 and 2008, and began studying them around 2017, according to the agency.

Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and their collaborators applied human dental impression techniques to study fish teeth in a species called Polypterus senegalus.