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> The 228,000 ocean-dwelling species that we know about represents about ten percent of the estimated total aquatic species. I don't buy it. The idea that the

• nickff 6y ago
  They usually make these types of estimates by looking at the rate of new species discovery, and assuming it will asymptotically approach zero.
• gerdesj 6y ago
  Do you have any idea just how vast the seas are? Think about it for a while. Consider that we mostly bob about on top and that is much bigger area compared to dry land. Now allow that it keeps on moving and drops away to up to 11 Km deep. Our senses are nearly useless in this alien world. 10% is just an educated guess and may be woefully low.
• waste_monk 6y ago
  >The idea that the deep ocean is full of all this life we haven't plundered yet seems like a fantasy. It's quite simple, they count the total number of species in the ocean and then use the number of species we know about to work out the percentage.
• Sharlin 6y ago
  "Species" includes arthropods, other invertebrates, and everything else all the way down to single-cellular organisms. And there is an incredible abundance of variety among those forms of life. I doubt we have even catalogued 10% of all species of beetles, never mind of all oceanic life.