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Recent figures indicate that there are more than 1.4 billion insects for each human on the planet, [27] or roughly 10 19 (10 quintillion) individual living insects on the earth at any given time. [28] An article in The New York Times claimed that the world holds 300 pounds of insects for every pound of humans. [28]
Insect biodiversity accounts for a large proportion of all biodiversity on the planet—over half of the estimated 1.5 million organism species described are classified as insects. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] A pie chart of described eukaryote species, showing just over half of these to be insects
Insects make up the vast majority of animal species. [14]Chapman, 2005 and 2009 [9] has attempted to compile perhaps the most comprehensive recent statistics on numbers of extant species, drawing on a range of published and unpublished sources, and has come up with a figure of approximately 1.9 million estimated described taxa, as against possibly a total of between 11 and 12 million ...
They were once thought to be extinct but were rediscovered in 2001.
A large number of insects live either part or the whole of their lives underwater. In many of the more primitive orders of insect, the immature stages are aquatic. In some groups, such as water beetles, the adults too are aquatic. [62] Many of these species are adapted for under-water locomotion.
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Insect species (IUCN, 2016.1) 5993 extant species have been evaluated; 4291 of those are fully assessed [a] 3144 are not threatened at present [b] 1146 to 2848 are threatened [c] 59 to 105 are extinct or extinct in the wild: 58 extinct (EX) species [d] 1 extinct in the wild (EW) 46 possibly extinct [CR(PE)] 0 possibly extinct in the wild [CR(PEW)]
Additionally 1702 insect species (28% of those evaluated) are listed as data deficient, meaning there is insufficient information for a full assessment of conservation status. As these species typically have small distributions and/or populations, they are intrinsically likely to be threatened, according to the IUCN. [ 2 ]