While many consider the Victorian era to be the "Golden Age of Natural History," science is currently describing species at a faster rate than any time in history. The majority of these new species are small (microbes, insects), but specimens of previously unknown megafauna are also being cataloged on a regular basis. Primatologists alone have named more than 25 new species of monkey since the year 2000. Below is a partial list of large animals, officially recognized by scientists during the last century, that were previously thought to be legendary or long-extinct.
"Amongst these big trees was found a monstrous beast, with the head of a fox, the hands of a man,
the tail of a monkey, and that wonderful provision of nature, a bag in which to carry its young."
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18th-century description of the kangaroo which Europeans regarded as mythical
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