There Are Easily Over 100,000 Extant Mollusk Species…

By Dr. M, on March 29th, 2008 3 comments   Opinion & Editorial

…there are barely 7,000 echinoderms.

3 comments to There Are Easily Over 100,000 Extant Mollusk Species…

• kevin z

  March 30, 2008 at 04:59 · Reply

  hmm… conservative estimates of arthropod species numbers start at 5 million…

• CR McClain

  March 30, 2008 at 10:58 · Reply

  That’s 100,000 described buddy. Arthropod lovers always report the estimated “potential” number based on some beatle count in the tropics. How many assumptions does that model have anyway? Seriously, how many arthropods have been described?

• Melusine

  March 30, 2008 at 12:18 · Reply

  I commented below, but they say here in several sources that 83% of described species are arthropods.

  Crustacea alone have ~52,000 species described.

  Don’t let it bug you – mollusks are cool. Crabs think so too.