Number of Species Identified on Earth
Scientists have described well over over 1.7 million of the world's species of animals, plants, insects and algae.
Below you'll find a list that gives the number of species known in the world for each major category of living creatures and organisms.
The numbers most accurately represent all living species of mammals, birds and coniferous plants. Only for those groups have scientists almost completely identified all the world's species.
Biologists have yet to describe many species of plants, invertebrate animals and lichens. So the number of these species known to science increases substantially every year.
The greatest species diversity exists among insects, which account for about one million of the earth's species known to science. Mammals make up one of the smallest groups, with just 5,513 members.
Altogether the earth's oceans, lakes, continents and islands support over 66,000 identified species of vertebrate animals and more than 307,000 species of plants.
| Category | Species | Totals |
|---|---|---|
| Vertebrate Animals | ||
| Mammals | 5,513 | |
| Birds | 10,425 | |
| Reptiles | 10,038 | |
| Amphibians | 7,302 | |
| Fishes | 32,900 | |
| Total Vertebrates | 66,178 | |
| Invertebrate Animals | ||
| Insects | 1,000,000 | |
| Spiders and scorpions | 102,248 | |
| Molluscs | 85,000 | |
| Crustaceans | 47,000 | |
| Corals | 2,175 | |
| Others | 68,827 | |
| Total Invertebrates | 1,305,250 | |
| Plants | ||
| Flowering plants (angiosperms) | 268,000 | |
| Conifers (gymnosperms) | 1,052 | |
| Ferns and horsetails | 12,000 | |
| Mosses | 16,236 | |
| Red and green algae | 10,386 | |
| Total Plants | 307,674 | |
| Others | ||
| Lichens | 17,000 | |
| Mushrooms | 31,496 | |
| Brown algae | 3,127 | |
| Total Others | 51,623 | |
| TOTAL SPECIES | 1,730,725 |
The species totals do not include domestic animals such as sheep, goats and camels. Nor do they include single-celled organisms such as bacteria.
Reference
The World Conservation Union. 2014. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2014.3. Summary Statistics for Globally Threatened Species. Table 1: Numbers of threatened species by major groups of organisms (1996-2014).