amazing creation and creatures!

Ok... I must admit I did not take the photos in this post, but they were way too amazing to not show you all! Evidently there have been more than 1,000 new species of flora and fauna (are bugs, reptiles, and spiders considered fauna?!?) discovered in South-East Asia's Greater Mekong in the past decade.

These creatures were in many news posts today, and I just had to share them. Beautiful colors, creepy creatures, cute and furry... new creatures that are only now being discovered... all these many years since God created them! I find that absolutely wonderful! Here we are, thinking we're so smart, having everything all figured out... and along come over 1,000 "new" species!! It just makes me chuckle!

"Striped rabbits, bright pink millipedes laced with cyanide and a spider bigger than a dinner plate are among a host of new species discovered in a remote wildlife hotspot. The Greater Mekong is described as one of the last scientifically unexplored regions of the world and it abounds in life seen nowhere else in the world, according to a new report from the World Wide Fund for Nature." (Fox News article)

And, so, for your viewing pleasure...

I present...some intriguing "new" creatures!!

The Ammanite striped rabbit, Nesolagus timminsi, found along the Mekong river in Laos and Vietnam

Heteropoda maxima, a huntsman spider a foot across found in Khammouan Province, Laos

Lygosoma boehmei, a skink from the Vietnamese end of the Mekong valley

A gentian flower from Khammouan Province in Laos

the Gekko scientiadventura

Gumprecht's green pit viper, found through most of the Mekong valley

Aeschynanthus mendumiae, a newly found flowering plant from the Mekong valley in Laos

A dragon millipede, Desmoxytes purpurosea, from the Thai side of the Mekong river

The Laotian rock rat, which may be the sole member of a completely new family or the last member of almost extinct family



WOW!!

And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good...And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

~Genesis 1:20-21, 24-25