A dinosaur obsessed 12 year old studied fossils and found a 69 million year old hadrosaur skeleton embedded in rock while hiking. A fisherman in Australia noticed tiny shrimp in his net that looked slightly different from the others and he sent a few specimens to biologists for testing. Turned out to be a never before described species, going unnoticed in a popular lake. I posted a pic ~here on tumblr~ of a weird parasite on a dead fish and a parasitologist found it and asked to report it as the species has never been seen in my area before.
There is so, so much out there we literally don’t even know. And the best way to find that stuff out is to be intensely curious about everything you see. You might not discover a new species but you absolutely will gain a deeper appreciation for the world around you.
