Conservation International's Rapid Assessment Program Can't Stop, Won't Stop Finding And...

Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop Finding And Documenting Rare And Amazing Animal Species

I feel like my imaginary girlfriend Jennifer Viegas is baiting me with this one. (Viegas is not imaginary; she’s an animal life reporter for Discovery News. But the part about how she’s my girlfriend is — as is the thought that she knows who I am.) A rap song produced by a conservationist group that starts off with the lyrics “Finding crazy geckos/That look like Satan…”? Are you kidding me? What am I supposed to do with that? I’m paralyzed by simultaneous revulsion and adoration.

Adoration wins. Mostly because of the photos. The biodiversity-protection organization Conservation International marks the 20th anniversary of their Rapid Assessment Program (or “R.A.P.,” which explains the choice in musical genre) by putting together a list, and slideshow, of the top 20 the most “biologically surprising, unique, or threatened” species its zoologists have discovered or assessed in their work in threatened tropical regions since 1991. Or, as MC Yusef Harden puts it (sounding not entirely unlike Wiz Khalifa), “A science S.W.A.T. team with the opposite objective/We aim to find and show it to the world and protect it…”

The creatures they’ve found are awesome. Check out the “Satanic Leaf-tailed Gecko” from Madagascar, or the “Yoda Bat” of Papa New Guinea. Or the emperor scorpion. (Here he is!) Or the “Tigris Ant.” Or even the less-excitingly named “large green tree frog.”

The work these people do is important and, I think, mind-blowing. Viegas writes (sort of flirtatiously, I thought):

“Did you know, for example, that there are approximately 1.9 million documented species of animals, but it’s estimated that up to 30 million species of organisms are yet to be discovered and scientifically described? Many disappear before scientists ever have the chance to discover and study them. This unfortunate process is known as Centinelan extinction.”

Here’s the Jungle Brothers’ 1988 “Straight Out the Jungle.”