If you want to plan a vacation, may I suggest Southeast Asia? There are so many species being discovered there on a daily basis that there are probably a ton of sponsored research trips to tag onto.
From National Geographic:
December 15, 2008--Gumprecht's green pit viper is among at least 1,068 new species that have been discovered in Southeast Asia's Greater Mekong River region in the last ten years--an average of two a week, the international conservation group WWF announced today.The only down side to the SE Asian research vacation? You may have to find stuff like this green pit viper, a cyanide spitting hot pink centipede or the biggest spider in the world.
"We don't know of any other place on the planet that has the same rate of discovery," said Stuart Chapman, director of WWF's Greater Mekong Programme, in a statement. The Greater Mekong includes areas of Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia.
Discovered in northeastern Thailand in 2002, the newfound snake species grows to about 4 feet (130 centimeters). Like all pit vipers, it hunts prey by sensing heat through small pits in the sides of its face.
2 comments:
pssst- hot pink thing is a millipede. it's got 2 legs per body segment. centipedes only have 1 leg per segment. class diplopod, sub-phylum myriapoda, phylum arthapoda.
although, it usually is the centipedes that are all cyanide-y.
hey, who knew learning all this stuff would come in handy?
showoff!
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