The whereabouts of newly discovered species are being left out in an effort to save the animals from poachers who use information from academic journals to hunt down the creatures, bringing them to near extinction, according to The Guardian.
When a new species is found, it is often cause for celebration, with the discovery's details spread far and wide among the scientific community via academic journals.
However, a new trend has just emerged of omitting the geographical locations of these rare species to protect them from poachers.
For example, when two new species of large gecko were recently announced, their location was not submitted. "Due to the popularity of this genus as novelty pets and recurring cases of scientific descriptions driving herpetofauna to near-extinction by commercial collectors, we do not disclose the collecting localities of these restricted-range species in this publication," said the research paper.
Information was instead given to government agencies that would give the information to scientists with the proper credentials.
Since the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature does not require specific GPS locations of new species, researchers can still be published and noted for their finds without risking the existence of entirely new animal populations.
