Total world species count put at 8.7 million

We all knew that we shared the world with a very wide variety of plants and animals, I guess we now have a better estimate of just how many that is

The vast majority have not been identified - and cataloguing them all could take more than 1,000 years.

The number comes from studying relationships between the branches and leaves of the "family tree of life".

The majority of these animals are going to be insects, followed by other vertebrates with plants and fungi in the minority. The total does not include bacteria

That's not taking into consideration the species that have already gone extinct. It is estimated that 99% of the organisms that have ever existed have already gone extinct

If this is correct, then only 14% of the world's species have yet been identified - and only 9% of those in the oceans.

"The rest are primarily going to be smaller organisms, and a large proportion of them will be dwelling in places that are hard to reach or hard to sample, like the deep oceans," said Dr Tittensor.

"I think it's definitely a creative and innovative approach, but like every other method there are potential biases and I think it's probably a conservative figure," he told BBC News.

Species count put at 8.7 million

I bet there are thousands just living in my garden.....It's my own wildlife reserve. Good thread mate.