Dec 23, 2025 01:20 AM
New species are now being discovered faster than ever before, study suggests
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1110888
INTRO: About 300 years ago, Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus set out on a bold quest: to identify and name every living organism on Earth. Now celebrated as the father of modern taxonomy, he developed the binomial naming system and described more than 10,000 species of plants and animals. Since his time, scientists have continued to describe new species in the quest to uncover Earth's biodiversity.
According to a new University of Arizona-led study published in Science Advances, scientists are discovering species quicker than ever before, with more than 16,000 new species discovered each year. The trend shows no sign of slowing, and the team behind the new paper predicts that the biodiversity among certain groups, such as plants, fungi, arachnids, fishes and amphibians is richer than scientists originally thought.
"Some scientists have suggested that the pace of new species descriptions has slowed down and that this indicates that we are running out of new species to discover, but our results show the opposite," said John Wiens, a professor in the University of Arizona Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, in the College of Science, and senior author of the paper. "In fact, we're finding new species at a faster rate than ever before."
The team analyzed the taxonomic histories of roughly 2 million species, spanning all groups of living organisms. Between 2015 and 2020 – the most recent period with comprehensive data – researchers documented an average of more than 16,000 new species each year, including more than 10,000 animals (dominated by arthropods and insects), 2,500 plants and 2,000 fungi.
"Our good news is that this rate of new species discovery far outpaces the rate of species extinctions, which we calculated to about 10 per year," said Wiens, pointing to another study he led that published in October. "These thousands of newly found species each year are not just microscopic organisms, but include insects, plants, fungi and even hundreds of new vertebrates." (MORE - details, no ads)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1110888
INTRO: About 300 years ago, Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus set out on a bold quest: to identify and name every living organism on Earth. Now celebrated as the father of modern taxonomy, he developed the binomial naming system and described more than 10,000 species of plants and animals. Since his time, scientists have continued to describe new species in the quest to uncover Earth's biodiversity.
According to a new University of Arizona-led study published in Science Advances, scientists are discovering species quicker than ever before, with more than 16,000 new species discovered each year. The trend shows no sign of slowing, and the team behind the new paper predicts that the biodiversity among certain groups, such as plants, fungi, arachnids, fishes and amphibians is richer than scientists originally thought.
"Some scientists have suggested that the pace of new species descriptions has slowed down and that this indicates that we are running out of new species to discover, but our results show the opposite," said John Wiens, a professor in the University of Arizona Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, in the College of Science, and senior author of the paper. "In fact, we're finding new species at a faster rate than ever before."
The team analyzed the taxonomic histories of roughly 2 million species, spanning all groups of living organisms. Between 2015 and 2020 – the most recent period with comprehensive data – researchers documented an average of more than 16,000 new species each year, including more than 10,000 animals (dominated by arthropods and insects), 2,500 plants and 2,000 fungi.
"Our good news is that this rate of new species discovery far outpaces the rate of species extinctions, which we calculated to about 10 per year," said Wiens, pointing to another study he led that published in October. "These thousands of newly found species each year are not just microscopic organisms, but include insects, plants, fungi and even hundreds of new vertebrates." (MORE - details, no ads)