5 ms·

Title is misleading. To quote the article "There are 8.7 million eukaryotic species on our planet — give or take 1.3 million." 8.7M is way too low for a total s

• BurningFrog 11y ago
  Side note: Using the term "species" for non sexually reproducing organisms like bacteria mostly confuses things.
  • randyrand 11y ago
    Why? What do you call different types of bacteria?
    • cjhveal 11y ago
      Bacteria are indeed grouped into species. The coli of Escherichia coli is an identifier for the species. However, species in general is a pretty nebulous term. One definition of species is the maximal set of individuals that are pairwise sexually capable of producing viable offspring (which is obviously non-sensical when we're talking of organisms which reproduce asexually.) Other methods of defining species rely on physical or genetic similarity, which are troublesome due to parallel & convergent evolution (where two phylogenically distinct populations arrive at the same morphology/phenotype) and horizontal gene transfer (transfering genetic information between individuals without directly producing offspring---fairly common in prokaryotes). So it can get a little bit hazy, but taxonomists carry on nonetheless as best they can.
      • mc808 11y ago
        "The DAG of Life" doesn't have quite as nice a ring to it.