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600 New Species of Fish Discovered
zenobr writes "Some 300 scientists from 53 countries are creating a record of all known marine life, in a project reminiscent of an aquatic Domesday Book. So far more than 15,000 species of fish have been catalogued and 2 to 3 thousand more are expected to be catalogued before the project's end in 2010. Over 500 of the fish catalogued thus far are thought to be new to science. Full story on BBC News"
I wonder how many fish they thought to be extinct they'll find doing this . . .
It would be interesting to estimate the total number of species of fish based on the trajectory of species counts. The trajectory probably follows some x% of remaining species are discovered on a yearly basis. A bit of linear regression on a transform of the species counts by year and a bit of calculus should provide a reasonable extrapolation.
Of course a simple analytic model would probably not be accurate for a number of reasons. I am sure there are wastersheds that have not been adequately explored that harbor substantive numbers of unknown species (e.g., Burma). There's also the problem of duplicates. Then there are extinctions of both previously discovered and never-to-be discovered species.
I know, I know, there's probably several papers in the academic literature on this and I'm just too lazy to look them up. But its fun to think about.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Worldwide, in the last few years, I have seen several estimations on how many species wait to be discovered, prepared by various organizations of Taxonomists, Biologists, and such. These are always much larger than the general public expects. There are probably no more than a few large mammals, at very most, awaiting discovery, but there may be 100,000 species of insects not yet categorized, and there are probably a thousand types of birds, hundreds of frogs and thousands of amphibians and reptiles, and possibly as many as a dozen rodents. It's even been proposed that there are still over 50 large (not bacteria sized) parasites on humans that have never been entered into a textbook. Overall, we may know as little as 15% of all species, and it appears dead certain the best possible number is less than 1/2. I'm not going to document all this in detail, but sites such as www.bottomquark.com have a few archived articles for those wanting to check the deplorable situation in taxonomy out.
Who is John Cabal?