It’s always wincingly amusing when scientists show up in the media saying, “We’ve got good news and bad news.” That’s in effect what happened the other day when, simultaneously, Arizona State University’s International Institute for Species Exploration unveiled its top-10 list of newly discovered species and ScienceDaily.com announced that the Caribbean monk seal is no longer with us.

One species extinct and 10 new ones found doesn’t seem like a bad deal, but of course that’s just the way the news bubbled up. In fact far more species are being lost every year than are discovered.

And a lot of people will wonder if the 10 “new” species are really that much of a boon to life on earth when they include a duck-billed dinosaur that’s been dead for 75 million years, a frog that doesn’t look too healthy either, other weird creatures like a bat, a ray and a rhinoceros beetle and the jazzy specimen pictured above, Thailand’s very own “shocking pink dragon millipede”.

Desmoxytes purpurosea, to give the millipede its Sunday-go-to-meeting moniker, “sits openly on the ground and vegetation during the day”, probably indicating that it’s toxic if eaten. That, its colour and its “common name” were enough to get it on the top-10 list.

The list is designed to thrill, with animals selected from among thousands of nominees based on unique or surprising attributes, the intent being to promote biodiversity awareness.

The Bangkok Post on June 11 quoted Somsak Panha as saying his “animal systematics research unit” from Chulalongkorn University determined that Shocking Pink — up to seven centimetres long and with 88 legs (one for every key on the piano, in case anyone wants to try training them) — lives primarily among the limestone mountains of northern and central Thailand. Despite its surmised toxicity, the beast regularly appears on rat and squirrel menus.

Human predators are Somsak’s bigger worry, and he wouldn’t be drawn on exactly where they found it, but sure as shooting, the Post reported that the millipede’s new-found fame has grabbed the attention of collectors, with some websites offering up to Bt1,540 per specimen, presumably dead or alive.

ScienceDaily.com says “dead” is the only option for the Caribbean monk seal, officially declared extinct following a 50-year absence. It goes down in history as the first type of seal to succumb to “human causes”, specifically hunting, which also wiped out the Atlantic grey whale and the stellar sea cow in earlier centuries.

Columbus’ crew “discovered” the Caribbean monk seal on his second voyage to the New World in 1494, and promptly killed and ate eight of them. As with the human natives of North America, it was all downhill from there.

Now that it’s been confirmed that Caribbean monk seal is completely out of stock, the Hawaiian and Mediterranean monk seals, its next of kin, have been notified that their cousin, last seen in 1952 in the Caribbean Sea’s Seranilla Bank between Jamaica and the Yucatan Peninsula, will be waiting for them in marine heaven. The surviving species are endangered, and weren’t expected to take the news well.

Looking to cheer readers up, ScienceDaily also reported that East Carolina University biologist Jason Bond has named a newly discovered trapdoor spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi, after — that’s right — Neil Young.

“I really enjoy his music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice,” Bond explained, before carrying on at length about his genitalia (the spider’s).

Dorseyland has a Neil Young concert review here that doesn’t feel the need to mention genitalia at all.