What are the chances I'd find a new species of animal if

>>2445846
New species are found all the time. Give it a go. The main problem is the description and cross-referencing it with existing descriptions. There are all sorts of new discoveries that have been discovered long ago. We need a proper online database for this shit.

You put a drop of pondwater under a microscope, look around until you see one microorganism that looks different from the rest, and then what? How do you go about identifying it when it's hard enough to identify a bug you find in your house or a plant growing by the side of the road?

>>2446069
Small ribosomal subunit

>>2445846
If it was 1800 sure. Even if you find something mophologically unique it may be genetically identical to some common microbe. It's all about high throughput genetic analysis now which requires hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of machines and reagents. It's the genomic era.

At best you could buy a decent microscope for a few hundred up to 1500 dollars and buy some simple staining reagents (gram stain, capsule stain, hematology stains) and pretty much dick around. The whole DIY or at home scientist gig has been dead for a while

>>2446137
Maybe you could somehow automate the process and then upload the data to a citizen science website like Zooniverse.org where volunteers would do the work for you. Then take credit for the discovery and name the new finding after yourself (like what happened with Boyajian's Star).

I've described about 25-30 new species of fungi, along with a few new genera, with many more on the way or sitting on my desk in unfinished/unsubmitted papers.

There are lots and lots of undescribed fungi out there. I've even described species from specimens I collected while walking my dogs. They are everywhere, the hard part is figuring out if they are truly undescribed and then doing the leg work (sequencing, measurements etc).