Open Species Database Breaks Half-Million Mark

ferienhausversicherung writes "Biologists estimate that about 1.75 million species, from bacteria to blue whales, have already been identified on Earth. But there may be anywhere between 3 million and 12 million more yet to be discovered. An online catalogue of all known life on Earth now has half a million species in its freely available database. Another promising effort is Wikispecies. Started in August 2004, this is an offshoot of the Wikimedia group, whose free online encyclopaedia is constructed by users themselves." (And Wikipedia itself is about to publish its 500,000th English entry -- if you hurry, perhaps it will be yours.)

Comments

Re:I find it funny

[FleaPlus]

One goal involves understanding Earth's biosphere more thoroughly. The other goal involves discovering a completely new biosphere, likely to be radically different from our own. Both are important, and I'm not sure why you find it strange that some people would happen to be more interested in one than the other.

Re:I find it funny

[Anonymous Coward]

> Strange how people seem to be more interested in finding life on other planets

No it isn't. Finding life on other planets would be the most important find since fire. It would change the religious and philosophic views of billions of people. It would mean we are not alone. It would teach us a great deal.

Finding another version of a spotted frog or deep sea worm is pretty great, but pales in comparison to the above.

Re:I find it funny

[Neil Blender]

You know what I find funny? The fact that we don't know everything about chemistry yet some people are interested in history. Some people even devote their entire lives to the study of history. All the while we don't know everything there is to know about chemistry. I've never understood that.

Wikispecies seems a bad idea

[Smilin]

Is is just me or does this seem a really bad idea? With Wikipedia you know what you are getting. The information is most likly correct but you'll take it with a grain of salt just to be sure. You don't really go there when doing research right?

With Wikispecies it's information that is scientific in nature and accuracy becomes paramount.

How long until everyone settles on the truly accurate definition of the Basselope? How about the purple-headed trowser snake?

Bad idea I say.

Uhh, LINK?!

[Palshife]

An online catalogue of all known life on Earth now has half a million species in its freely available database.

That's awesome. ...

WHERE THE HELL IS IT?!

Re:On Extinction

[Anonymous Coward]

Not every species is equally important. If the hundreds of extinct species are large mammals, and the hundreds of new species are bacteria, then soon we'll be back to a primitive Earth with bacteria only.

Re:On Extinction

[Seraphim_72]

But I think that if you look at this logically, you'll draw a different conclusion. Long before man arrived, that species of bird had failed to evolve a solid foothold in its ecosystem. With all of New Zealand right there, the best that bird could do was live on one tiny island.

...Or perhaps the species had reacently come about and was waiting for said hurricane to blow it to other islands to help its own little Diaspora. Or perhaps it's evolution had just started and given another hundred years population pressure would have forced members of the species to start to try migration. Or perhaps the spieces was in a state of flux gettting yeady for some individuals to evolve into yet a different species one that would have made it off the island. The bird did have a solid foothold on it's ecosystem. When that ecosystem changed it, like many others have to currently deal with non-native invasive species had a very rough go of it.

So, there are millions of species on our planet, and I think we should study and catalog all of them. But let's also acknowledge the fact that no matter what we do, 99.9% of those species are going to be evolutionary dead ends.

On a sufficiently large enough time scale sure. But it is very short sighted of us to not give them all a chance anyway. What if the next plant that we wipe out holds the cure to cancer, what if the next vole shows the evolution of the bat, what if the next sapling cut down would have (in that sufficiently large enough time scale) have led to the rise of a group to rival the angiosperms in thier variety and vitality. It is not just that humans cause extinctions (You're welcome ;)) Its that we are causing them at the greatest rate since any of the mass exticion events that have happened on the planet. All that it takes is a very little bit of care and we humans seem to think that we are the most special of the species and don't have to care.

Here are two closing thoughts for you. What is the most successful Genus on the planet? The knee jerk reaction is humans. No, not at all. The most successful is one of the Grass genera (take your pick) not only to they outnumber Humans by orders of magnitude but they have evolved and obligate parasite (us). Second I leave you with the words of my Taxonomy professor. "It is theoretically impossible to identify a species of a living set of creatures, for everything is constantly evolving, and what is not identifiable as a species today may be tomorrow. Truly the only way to identify a species is when they are all gone. So truth be told, mankind have been the greatest producer of species in the history of the World. " A true statement, and one that ruffles the feathers of biologists.It does not however mean that we shouldn't care about "making more species"

Sera