• Question: How many different species are there in the world

    Asked by MartianMaster to Joe, Joanna on 11 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Joe Nunez-Mino

      Joe Nunez-Mino answered on 11 Jun 2016:

      The truth is right now we still don’t know how many species, we do know we have not described them all yet. I’m currently working with other scientists on describing some new dung beetle species from the cloud forest of Honduras. The estimates that do exist for the number of species goes from around 10 million to 1 Trillion – there are a lot of species either way! Close to 2 million species have been described so far so plenty more to come

    • Photo: Joanna Bagniewska

      Joanna Bagniewska answered on 12 Jun 2016:

      I agree with what Joe wrote – we don’t know the exact numbers yet, but probably somewhere between billions and trillions; we have only described a small fraction. At the same time, species are constantly going extinct, so we are losing some that we have never even had the chance to describe or study…

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