On Feb 4, 1:07*pm, Sue Erickson wrote:
For as long as people have lived/explored in S. America -- Suddenly
there are new species that are THAT beautiful. *Were we blind for
years?


In some respects, it is a matter of luck, and in others a question of
how thorough a field scientist can be with limited money and time.
There are many species that were thought to be extinct because no one
had seen one in decades, only to be 'rediscovered' by accidental
encounters with them in places no one had thought to look.

When I lived in, and travelled through, south Asia, arguably among the
most densely populated regions on the planet, I saw plenty of places
that were poorly known and even completely unknown to science (as no
one had found the money or time to examine them). There are many
sites, even there, that have never been properly investigated by
experienced field scientists. There are countless reefs in the coral
sea that have never been visited by either fishermen or reef
ecologists. There are new species being discovered all the time,
particularly in rain forests of the world. I would not be at all
surprised if there remain lots of species, even of orchids, that have
yet to be enumerated. It takes lots of money and manpower to
enumerate the species present in just a few square kilometers. And
the numbers of new species to be expected increases as one considers
just how difficult it is to find species that are rare. When it comes
to biodiversity, with the amount of resources available for sampling,
we're really just groping in the dark. I can almost guarantee that
there are lots of beautiful orchid species remaining to be discovered.

Cheers,

Ted