New mammals?

Two species of new mouse have been discovered! Read it at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090320-new-mouse-picture.html

Well, frankly, the expanse of earth makes it almost impossible for human to catalogue the entire world of animals and plants. I remembered recently about the discovery of a new tree in Europe as well. At times I wonder why the attempt to understand the earth's population is receiving far less attention than the space exploration. Perhaps the idea is that space exploration creates more spin off invention that has benefited human kind. There are tonnes of such ideas actually.

However, it has also been widely known of the attempt to replicate some of the nature properties to help human, for example the study of bird flight to create better flight engine, the study of gecko to create better adhesives, etc. Perhaps if more attention is put to study nature, there are lots of ideas to equal those presented by the space exploration as well?