• Question from:Nathan Jackson

This probably isn't the most valid question you've ever got, but I'm curious. I was thinking about the possibility that a large reptile could live undiscovered in some remote corner of the globe. It seems possible to me, since there are a lot of unexplored locations where a large animal could hide (e.g. the Congo, the Amazon).

I didn't really know whether I should post a question like this on a website like this, but I'm interested in knowing what actual biologists (rather than first-year zoology students, like myself) think of this idea and how plausible or implausible it is.

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  • University of Bristol
  • Posts: 4,230

yes theoretically it is possible for the reasons you say. New species are being discovered all the time. That said a large reptile as you describe would be likely to travel reasonably widely making descriptions/sitings more likely, there would be fairly obvious skeletal remains and descriptions from local native populations.