Jumanji!

I saw this article the other day, and there is so much cool stuff in there something needed to be said about it. (CNN is talking about it too now)

For those who don’t want to read the article, it basically says that in the Greater Mekong, in southeast Asia, new species of plants and animals are being discovered at an absurd pace. In the last decade more than 1000 species have been found, and some of them seem really cool. One of the highlights is a bright pink millipede that excretes cyanide as a defense mechanism. They’ve also found a really big spider, a neon green viper, and a ton of other things.

But the highlight, without a doubt, is the Laotian Rock Rat. Scientists thought it had gone extinct 11 million years ago, but they’re still around. Honestly, the rat itself isn’t so interesting, but the possibilities it represent are awesome. How many other “extinct” animals are around that we just don’t know about? I’m sure that there are areas of, like, Carslbad Caverns that haven’t been explored; for all we know there are like saber-tooth tigers and spinosauri living down there, eating giant chinchillas and Neanderthals and just generally being awesome.

And there are probably even more cool animals in the ocean. Mariana Trench is probably the coolest place in the world, but because it’s so far under water no one knows. Now, I have no scientific evidence to back that up, but I can still say with utter certainty that there are Megalodons swimming around down there, making great white sharks tremble with fear. And yeah, I think that's awesome.

But honestly, it’s probably a good thing that we haven’t found these animals, because, unfortunately, people are really fucking stupid, and we would drive them all to extinction.