There is no final answer to the question of how many animal species exist in the world. Despite the fact that the science of biology today is at a high stage of development, and more than 1.7 million species of organisms have already been described, this is far from the limit - scientists suggest that the exact number is approaching the figure of 8, 7 million, and if we take into account the extinct species, you get about 500 million.
What is a view?
A biological species is the main structural unit of the classification of living organisms on Earth. He describes a group of individuals with common morphological, physiological, biochemical, behavioral and other characteristics. Organisms of the same species are capable of interbreeding with each other, giving offspring capable of procreation - this is impossible between different species. Under the influence of evolutionary factors, in changing environmental conditions, species can separate.
The basics of the species taxonomy of living organisms were proposed by the Swedish scientist Karl Linnaeus in the middle of the 18th century. Since then, over a million different species have been found and studied.
Animals
Animals are a group of organisms that make up the biological kingdom. They are eukaryotes, that is, their cells are composed of nuclei. Animals are distinguished by heterotrophic nutrition (release energy from organic compounds), the ability to actively move. In colloquial language, animals are often called terrestrial vertebrates, but from the point of view of science, this is a collection of many classes: fish, insects, birds, starfish, worms, arachnids and others.
Number of animal species
Not only the exact, but even the approximate number of species of living organisms that live on Earth is unknown. Some biologists talk about small gaps in the taxonomy of living things, which can be replenished with only a few hundred thousand species, others argue that millions of different species that live in the most inaccessible places for humans remain unknown and undescribed. The largest figure, cited by the researchers, is 8.7 million.
While about 1.7 million species have been described, animals make up the majority of them: plants, mushrooms and other kingdoms account for about one hundred thousand species. So, studied about 5, 5 thousand mammals, 10, 1 thousand birds, 9, 4 thousand reptiles, 6, 8 amphibians, 102 thousand arachnids. Insects still remain the most numerous group - there are about a million of them.
It is assumed that among the still unexplored species, insects make up the largest part - about ten million.
Despite the development of biology, it is still quite difficult to study and find new species. While large mammals are not expected to have large recruits, smaller animals are more difficult to study. Although, until now, scientists annually find several dozen new species of mammals. Birds are also quite well studied: they are easy to find and pleasant to watch.
There are situations when biologists find living representatives of species that were considered dead long ago. Thus, science has yet to answer the question of the exact number of animal species.
