Ah! I can't believe I didn't reply to this!!!

I have been thinking about this comment for a very long time, and I really wanted to thank you for putting so much thought into it, as I feel a lot more educated about swamps and I think anyone lucky enough to find it will surely feel the same! This was an enlightening and fascinating read.

I read it to my wife too, who's an Earth & Environmental Science major, and she thought it was cool. :D

It's fascinating to me especially what you said about the parasite/tick situation spiraling out of control. I often wondered how the heck anybody "walked through the woods behind the house" or whatnot without being covered in the nasty things, and this explains so much.

I used to live in NorthEast Oklahoma for a minute. There were nasty little things called "chiggers" living in the grass that appeared as red dust on your skin but would start stinging and biting really badly. The Arizona Bark Scorpions out there were also insanely, ridiculously numerous.

I often wondered how the heck Native tribes or settlers of yore could deal with such things constantly attacking them wherever they went! (Scorpions aside, we know they hitchhike on modern interstate commerce lol)

The bit about Mexico City was mind blowing too. It explains why the whole place is slowly sinking. A PBS documentary called "Water Wars" covered this pretty well. It's dire stuff...

Wishing you all the best and thank you again for such an awesome comment. I've never been happier to get a reply to an opinion I just spouted off on the internet for conversation's sake! XD