ABSTRACT
The variety of life on earth is staggering in its enormity. There are an estimated 8,000 species of mammals, over 6,000 species of reptiles, 9,000 species of birds, and 25,000 species of fish, all either swimming, walking, flying, or crawling over our planet. The number of individual species of insects, which make up over 90% of all life forms on earth, is estimated at anywhere between 6 million and 10 million. That’s a lot of bugs. I say these are estimated figures because, though we live in an increasingly crowded world, much of it still remains almost completely unexplored. The simple truth is that no one knows exactly how many undiscovered species exist in the deeper seas or the remote jungles and forests, even if these last two are diminishing environments. The number of species that have been lost to the world, and continue to be lost at an alarmingly high rate, is beyond imagining.
