Images: Top 10 New Species of 2014

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Camouflage Gecko

leaf-tailed gecko camouflaged

(Image credit: Conrad Hoskin)

Amoeboid Protist

new protist species

(Image credit: Courtesy of Manuel Maldonado)

Spiculosiphon oceana, a bizarre single-celled protist that builds a shell out of the discarded skeletal pieces of marine sponges.

Spiculosiphon Whole

spiculosiphon full body image

(Image credit: Courtesy of Manuel Maldonado)

Although it is only made of one cell, spiculosiphon grows to be 1.6 inches (4 cm) long.

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Clean Room Microbes

clean room microbes

(Image credit: Images provided by Leibniz-Institute DSMZ and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology)

Tersicoccus phoenicis, a microbe found independently in separate clean rooms. This microbe survives all manner of sterilization attempts.

Tinkerbell Fairyfly

tinkerbell fairyfly scanning electron microscope

(Image credit: Jennifer Read)

Tinkerbella nana, a parasitoid wasp that measures only 0.00984 inches (250 micrometers) long and lives in Costa Rica.

Transparent Snail

new species of translucent snail

(Image credit: Jana Bedek)

A domed land snail Zospeum tholussum in the Lukina jama-Trojama cave system in Croatia.

Clear Snails

transparent snail with no eyes

(Image credit: Alexander M. Weigand)

The snail lacks pigmentation and has no eyes, thanks to its pitch-black cave habitat.

Snails in Cave

snails in cave in croatia

(Image credit: Jana Bedek)

The transparent domed land snail moves only a few centimeters a week at most, mostly grazing in circles.

Stephanie Pappas
Stephanie Pappas
Live Science Contributor

Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.