2026-03-06 23:16 UTC
Replies (2)
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@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz 2026-03-06 23:26
@TonyVladusich@mathstodon.xyz - I was just wrong about this, so I'll change my post. We've only found about 6,758 living mammal species. But since 2005, there have been 805 newly described mammal species (and 774 split from known species, which is rather a different matter), which is about 40 per year. Eventually this will slow to a trickle. This is quite unlike insects, where there's a vast number of species, and some estimate 80% of them are waiting to be catalogued. https://www.mammaldiversity.org/
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@dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz 2026-03-06 23:26
@TonyVladusich@mathstodon.xyz Very good question. There *is* a methodology that plots discoveries plus some measure of the diffficulty of the discovery over time, looks at the curve, and guesses at the number yet undiscovered, and when done right, it has had some amount of confirmation as a decent approach at least some times. In the absence of a mention of using that methodology, though, it sounds more like a vague feeling than something evidence-based. @johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz