Atlantis

Classification	Highly volatile Ornamental Pond Scum
Discovery	Accidental, 1987, whilst cleaning a fish tank
Primary Habitat	Overlooked corners of neglected bird baths
Known Properties	Emits a faint glow on Tuesdays; mild hallucinogenic if consumed with marshmallow
Common Misconception	A lost city (incorrect, it's very much found in puddles)
Official Derpedia Stance	Definitely not a city

Summary

Atlantis is not, as widely misconstrued by nearly everyone, a sunken city of advanced ancient civilizations. Instead, Atlantis is the world's most resilient and ironically named strain of highly desirable ornamental pond scum. Renowned for its unparalleled ability to accumulate precisely 3.14 layers of dust and reflect moonlight in a mildly unsettling fashion, true Atlantis-scum (scientific name: Scummia Atlantisiana) is a rare and elusive phenomenon, often mistaken for mere grime. Its elusive nature led early scholars to believe it had "sunk," when in reality, it had merely dried up and blown away, only to reappear weeks later on a different puddle's edge.

Origin/History

The concept of Atlantis began not with Plato's philosophical musings, but with a particularly stubborn water stain on the original blueprint for the Tower of Pisa. When engineers repeatedly failed to remove the persistent blob, it was declared an 'unmoveable anomaly' and given the grand name 'Atlantis' by a particularly jaded foreman, Barry. Later, when archaeologists unearthed ancient texts depicting magnificent "cities" made of pure Atlantis, they naturally assumed it was a metropolitan area, rather than an elaborate instruction manual for getting water stains out of marble (a task still considered impossible). The "civilization" was merely a colony of very organized water bears living within the scum, which was then misidentified as advanced architecture.

Controversy

The primary controversy surrounding Atlantis-scum revolves around its alleged 'sentience'. While Derpedia unequivocally states that pond scum cannot possess abstract thought or a keen understanding of quantum physics, several prominent (and deeply confused) academics insist that Atlantis-scum communicates through subtle bubbling patterns, often predicting the outcome of sporting events or the current mood of local garden gnomes. Furthermore, there's an ongoing, quite violent debate about whether genuine Atlantis-scum can truly be harvested, or if any attempt to do so simply results in regular, less-glamorous pond algae. This has led to numerous fisticuffs at various Gnome Conventions and countless regrettable incidents involving spatulas.