Species count put at 8.7 million

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

23 August 2011 Last updated at 21:07 GMT

Species count put at 8.7 million

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News

The natural world contains about 8.7 million species, according to a new estimate described by scientists as the most accurate ever.

But the vast majority have not been identified - and cataloguing them all could take more than 1,000 years.

The number comes from studying relationships between the branches and leaves of the "family tree of life".

The team warns in the journal PLoS Biology that many species will become extinct before they can be studied.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14616161

[Orrex]

1. Pfft. We should be able to cut that down by about 2 or 3 million easy

Just give us another few decades.

[tridim]

2. How did Noah do it?

[mike_c]

3. two by two, if I recall correctly....

Must have been a big ass boat. :rofl:

[mike_c]

4. most of them arthropods...

...and most of those, insects. We live in the Age of Insects, and have since the Carboniferous or so.

[Odin2005]

5. God must have an inordinate fondness for beetles.