Not so wild if you consider the fact that we don't live in the sea/ocean. There is a reason why we know more about land animals.

Also because in the sea life is more volumetric. Most sea animals move through the water at least in one stage of their life. Most land animals just move over the ground. Not through the air.

Your point isn't completely invalid, but there are two major counterarguments:

- Most land animals do fly. Most insects fly, and most land animals are insects.

- Almost all (90%+) of animals live in the top 200 meters of the ocean. That's not that much different than the portion of the "air" that includes things that live in trees.

In both cases, it's a pretty thin layer of the total volume that contains almost all of the animals. It is more distributed in water, but not as much as your comment implied.

Yup, Rice's Whale was discovered as recently as 2021 for example. And is not exactly a small animal living in a remote location. USA native

It was discovered in 2021 that they were a separate species. The whales had been observed there since the 1960s.

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/southeast/marine-mammal-prote...

I do love that there's still so much more to learn, especially when it's large animals that have avoided us successfully thus far.

These animals may be much more intelligent than we realize; many species could have avoided extinction if they had avoided contact with the evil and destructive humans.

Yeah especially a bit deeper it's wild & must be many animals we have yet to discover.