Small undiscovered species, such as insects, are a dime a dozen; entomologists find new bugs all the time.
But are we at a point now where no living species as large as an elephant could still yet be undiscovered on Earth? What about small antelope/deer-sized animals?
In the deep ocean, could there still yet be any new living species as large as a whale or shark?
A species isn’t one of something, it is thousands of something, traveling around and eating. There is no chance that there is something the size of an elephant or whale around that isn’t just a slightly different elephant or whale that has been seen a billion times before and just not recognized as a different species. Even deer-sized animals would be things that the locals would know about even if they hadn’t been formally described by scientists. But something really novel that you can show to enough old locals and nobody recognizes it? I’d say squirrel-sized is pushing it for land.
The deep seas are still surprisingly unexplored, and it’s home to huge creatures. It’s perfectly possible there are still species left there nobody has seen before.
Just discovered this year:
And five years ago, never seen alive in the wild (or somewhere else, of course):
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/new-whale-species
Regarding your first example - according to the article, these whales were not discovered recently. They were just reclassified as a separate species. I don’t think phylogenetic reclassification of known populations is what the OP is looking for.
Scientists had long considered a group of whales in the Gulf of Mexico a subset of Bryde’s whales
Your second example looks more what I think the OP is looking for, something completely unknown - as you say, apparently never yet seen alive.
I just googled “newly discovered whale species” and lots of hits were listed. Also this one:
The line between completly unknown and phylogenetic reclassification is somewhat blurred, but some examples are indeed better than others.
Then, as Schnitte has pointed out, there may be lots of cephalopods in the deep sea that only sperm whales have seen.
Considering that bats are about 1/5 of all known mammals species I bet there are a lot still undiscovered. They may be lightweights but some have impressive wingspans, I don’t know whether the OP means size or weight when he says “largest”. Worm-like creatures from very different families can also be very long and remain undiscovered, both on land and in the sea.
Thanks for the replies thus far.
Yes, land-based animals would be all the more interesting. With all the people seeing things, no huge animal could go unnoticed for long. So as Darren Garrison said, is squirrel-sized about the biggest thing you could expect a land based species to be undiscovered as of yet?
There was a thread a few years ago about someone discovering a heretofore undiscovered valley in New Guinea. [Could not find the thread.] Not even the indigenous people were aware of it. It had some unique animals not found elsewhere, although all were related to other New Guinean animals. If there’s another such valley, there could be more undiscovered species.
Do we count things that were thought extinct but are not?
Brian
This is probably about it:
I suspect that lots of people informally discovered this species before, A child out playing with a companion might say something like — that sure is a strange looking bat. No publication, no discovery.
I’d say yes. I wouldn’t say it was impossible for us to find a new species of colossal squid given how few specimens we’ve ever had.
The one that immediately came to my mind was the saola:
A scientific expedition discovered remains in 1992, and the first photo of a live specimen was taken in 1999. This wasn’t a newly reclassified species or subspecies of a known animal - it was completely unknown.
It seems quite possible that there are similar completely unknown mammals lurking in remote forests. Probably not elephant-sized, but small deer, apes, large cats, and the like seem like live possibilities.
My wife is an as yet undiscovered species of elephant.
Haha no, I don’t have a wife.
Your example was from 29 years ago. There are billions more people now, some of whom have been looking for big new species for the past three decades. I vote for no new land species anywhere near as big as a saola ever being discovered again. Of course, I could be wrong.
There had been people looking for big new species for centuries before the saola was found. And yet…
I’m not a cryptozoologist. I’m not “voting for” a land species the size of the saola being found again. I have no particular reason to think there are any extant land species of that size still undescribed in the scientific literature.
But if a small deer could go completely unrecorded until 1992 in Vietnam, I see no reason to simply dismiss the possibility of the existence of a similar-sized animal in the depths of the Amazonian rainforest, or a remote valley of New Guinea, or similar regions.
As I stated, I think it’s a live possibility, not that it’s probable. Of course, I could be wrong.
It depends on what size of whale or shark they are as large as. Dolphin sized? Maybe. Humpback sized? No fucking way.
Unknown to science. But unknown to the natives? I bet if they took it around to the local elders they would find people would say “Oh, that’s a doohicky. Good eating on a doohickey. When I was just a boy, my grandfather had a doohicky-skin cap.” the same way the “newly discovered” celocanth was actually familiar (as a trash fish) to fishermen in that area.
In 2013, a new species of flying squirrel was “discovered” by scientists at a wild game market in Laos. If even fruit as low hanging as that still remains to be explored by scientists, I’ve no doubt there’s significant quantities of animals that are well known to local people but have yet to be discovered by the scientific community.
I kinda assumed that went without saying. Apparently it doesn’t.
[edit] The saola wasn’t a newly reclassified species or subspecies of an animal known in the scientific literatute - it was completly unknown to outsiders (presumably there were locals who were aware of its existence).
If we’re going with the standard of completely unknown to any humans, including members of uncontacted tribes, then, yeah, there almost certainly aren’t any living animal species on land larger than a small insect that are unknown to some humans, somewhere.
Still possible, I think, in the deep ocean, of which we still know very little.
About half to 5/6 humpback whale size (although nowhere near as massive). Given the paucity of sightings/specimens, and the frequency with which even those were taken to be the unrelated giant squid, I’m going to have to respond with: “Yes fucking way”. The ocean is a big place, and the Southern Ocean a very little-traversed and -studied part of it.