Species on EarthThe diversity of life on our planet is such a miracle that people are always amazed by it. Scientists have named and cataloged 1.9 million species. However, no one really knows how many species exactly exist on Earth. Previous estimates have ranged wildly from fewer than 1 million to about 100 million. A most recent paper "How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?", published in the August 2011 Issue of PLoS Biology, estimates there are 8.74 million distinct eukaryote species on the planet, plus or minus 1.3 million. Nearly 6.5 million of these species live on land versus 2.2 million in the ocean. Since the number is not including bacteria, it almost certainly underestimates the true biological diversity in our world. Nevertheless, many researchers agree that the latest estimate is fairly convincing. |
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Currently Cataloged and Predicted Total Number of Species on Earth and in the Ocean
"It is a remarkable testament to humanity’s narcissism that we know the number of books in the US Library of Congress on 1st February 2011 was 22,194,656, but cannot tell you—to within an order of magnitude—how many distinct species of plants and animals we share our world with." – Lord May, Former President of the Royal Society |
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