How many species of animals on earth are neighbors with us

All life on the planet is striking in its diversity. Since the earliest times, mankind has studied, tried to order and count the number of species on the planet. But even today, despite the rather high degree of development of biology, no scientist will be able to answer exactly the question of how many species of animals on Earth coexist next to us.

General concepts

Under the guise of biology, we mean a group of living organisms that are similar in some criteria and capable of crossing with the birth of fertile offspring.

Criteria of the species are abound:

• Morphological (external and internal structure);
• Genetic (structure of the genome);
• Biochemical (similarity of metabolic processes);
• Physiological (similarity of life processes);
• Geographic (habitat);
• Ecological (a place in an ecological niche).

You can also expand this list. To determine the type and introduce it into the classification system, it is necessary to carry out a fairly painstaking analysis.

Animals and plants

Oddly enough, even in determining the body's belonging to a particular taxon, it can be difficult. Today, biologists tend to believe that animals are organisms that use already prepared organic substances for life and are unable to synthesize them from inorganic substances. Plants themselves synthesize organic substances for their vital processes. Again, this is very simplistic.

Evolutionary Complexities

Counting how many species of animals and plants on Earth exists at a given time, is quite problematic, taking into account every second evolution. Each species once appears, is experiencing a flowering or decline, disappears or evolves.

Some biologists cite data that three species of living organisms disappear irrevocably every hour on the planet, respectively, about 72 species will disappear within a day. About how many species arise, one can judge by the fact that annually the classification and taxonomy is replenished with thousands of new species described. It is significant that practically every catch with the help of deep-sea trawls of research vessels brings to the oceanologists representatives, not previously described species.

Data of paleontology

How many species of animals exist on Earth? According to paleontologists, this is 2-3% of the total number that appeared on the planet since the birth of life. Extinction - the process normal for evolution is the same as the emergence of new species. Therefore, the answer to the question of how many species of animals are left on Earth requires the definition of time frames. The natural selection in the struggle for existence has not been canceled.

For example, there is evidence that from 1600 to 1969, 38 species of the mammal class and 94 species of the bird class disappeared from the face of the earth.

Are they missing or not?

There is such an international Commission for the Conservation of Species (IUCN), according to which 801 species of animals officially described disappeared from the face of the Earth for the past 500 years. Sometimes the appearance declared by the disappeared, resumes its existence.

In the 20s of the previous century, this happened to the northern sea elephant. The species was found to have disappeared as a result of ruthless extermination by man. However, a lost group of elephants on the outskirts of Mexico, on a small island of Guadalupe, managed to survive, and miraculously from about 100 individuals, this species of large mammals was able to restore its strength. Today the species is not under threat of extinction.

Is it so scary to disappear

How can the disappearance of butterflies alone affect the evolution of the living on the planet, even children know. Everyone watched the same Hollywood blockbuster. The plot of the film has a very real background. Biologists give an example of how changing one species in the ecosystem of the Amazon floodplain leads to colossal consequences. Up to changes in the terrain. So the life of one little butterfly in nature, where everything is connected by the finest thread-ties, is as important as the existence of all mankind.

And yet, how many species of animals on Earth?

Whatever it was, attempts to determine the number of species are being undertaken. The latest scientific work of universities in Canada and Hawaii gives a figure of 8.7 million - that's how many species of animals on Earth exist today. And 80% of this figure are species not yet described by modern science. Questions from non-specialists in this regard are no less than those of professional taxonomists.

Other data indicate the existence of 150 million species, of which only 1.5 million have been studied.

Why count?

The knowledge of how many species of animals on Earth, according to biologists, is not only of theoretical interest. The practical importance of such knowledge will allow ecologists to calculate, at what losses the point of no return will come , the point of ecological catastrophe of a planetary scale. Such calculations have their own methods and can help develop ways to preserve the stable ecosystems that determine the existence of life on the planet.

Accurate data on the number of species diversity the world will never know. This is the forecast of biologists. We will always guess at a plus, minus a million. However, this does not give reason for mankind to give up worry. The fragility of the ecosystem of the planet, the importance of everyone, even an insignificant organism in the biosphere, is the greatest value given by nature.