# Are there still monsters lurking?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-still-monsters-lurking/683266>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [March 9, 2014, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-still-monsters-lurking/683266 "2014-03-09T14:38:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![old\_nicky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@old\_nicky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/old_nicky)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-still-monsters-lurking/683266/1 "2014-03-09T14:38:49Z")

</div>

Again Cecil is spot on with his answer to unknown animals to be discovered. In the 1990’s a single field biologist (Marc van Roosmalen) discovered half a dozen new species of monkey, a new species of peccary and a dwarf manatee in less than a decade, while doing field work in Surinam and Brazil.  
Now, new species are discovered on a daily basis but most of it is ‘small fry’: insects and other arthropods. However, even new phyla are discovered -in the eyes of lobsters-, nogal.  
But even a dwarf manatee is ‘big’: about our size.  
What is ‘big’ and what is small? We can all agree that what needs a microscope to be discovered is ‘small’ and what is bigger than us is ‘big’. But what about inbetween? Bigger than a fly? A mouse? A rat or cat? A peccary?  
Note that humans and really big animals do not go well together, and I don’t mean dinosaurs, which disappeared long before our advent.  
The rhino-sized diprotodonts and 3 meter tall carnivorous kangaroos in Australia, the moa’s and Haart’s eagles of New Zealand, the mammoths and short-faced bears of the boreal areas, the elephant birds and gorilla-sized ground lemurs of Madagascar, you name it. Only in Africa and to a lesser degree Asia we still find a substantial amount of megafauna. What does that tell us?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-still-monsters-lurking/683266/2 "2014-03-09T16:55:10Z")

</div>

Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, **old nicky** , we’re glad you’ve found us.

For future ref, when one starts a thread, it’s helpful to other readers to provide a link to the column in question. Keeps us on the same page, avoids duplication, and saves searching time. No biggie, you’ll know for next time.

I assume that you were referring to: [Are there still unexplored parts of the world where unknown animals may lurk? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3121/are-there-still-unexplored-parts-of-the-world-where-unknown-animals-may-lurk)

(If I’m wrong, please let me know – hit the REPORT button, little ! in red triangle in upper right corner of post – and I’ll change it.)

Meanwhile, as I say, welcome!