Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:22:33 -0700 (PDT) From: lyrawmn <[email protected]>
However, biologists to date simply do not know how many species exist on Planet Earth. Scientists estimate between 0.1% and 0.01% of species (~ 2 million identified, but perhaps as many as 100 million species exist on earth ) will become extinct each year. That is a loss of between 200-2000 of known species, or between 10,000-100,000 potential extinctions per year. Mario observes: Hey, lyrawmn, Here I thought I was reporting some good news for a change, of hundreds of new species found in the already de-forested eastern Himalayas, only to find from your post that the news on the evolution of species front is seriously dire. Do you think perhaps these biologists are pulling our legs? Can the problem be this modern fuzzy math? Let me try and explain why. a) They say they don't know how many species exist. I can believe that from the range of the estimate of 2 million to a 100 million [We call this a wild a**ed guess where I live]. But then they provide an estimate of how many become extinct as a percentage. Are these numbers any good? I rarely see a report of new species found until I saw the one I posted. b) If they found 353 new species in just the eastern Himalayas with all the deforestation there, is it possible that they are finding more new species across the globe than the ones becoming extinct? c) You quote, "states deforestation of tropical forests MAY zap 27,000 species per year to extinction". Is it also possible that they MAY NOT based on the experience of the eastern Himalayas?
