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More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, [7] that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. [8] [9] Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, [10] of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. [11]
The Ents appear in The Lord of the Rings as ancient shepherds of the forest and allies of the free peoples of Middle-earth during the War of the Ring. The Ent who figures most prominently in the book is Treebeard, who is called the oldest creature in Middle-earth. At that time, there are no young Ents (Entings) because the Entwives (female Ents ...
Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million in total. Animals range in size from 8.5 millionths of a metre to 33.6 metres (110 ft) long and have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs .
Ants (family Formicidae in the order Hymenoptera) are the most species-rich of all social insects, with more than 12,000 described species and many others awaiting description. [1] Formicidae is divided into 21 subfamilies , of which 17 are extant and four subfamilies are extinct , described from fossils .
The word ant and the archaic word emmet [3] are derived from ante, emete of Middle English, which come from ǣmette of Old English; these are all related to Low Saxon e(e)mt, empe and varieties (Old Saxon emeta) and to German Ameise (Old High German āmeiza).
Beginning in the 1990s, molecular (DNA sequence) data have come to play a central role in attempts to reconstruct the ant "tree of life".Molecular phylogenetic analyses based on multiple nuclear genes have yielded robust results that reinforce some preexisting views but overturn others – and suggest that there has been considerable morphological convergence among some ant lineages.
It is estimated that more than 99% of all species that ever existed on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, [3] are extinct. [4] [5] Earth is the only celestial body known to harbor life forms. No form of extraterrestrial life has yet been discovered. [6]
The largest animal currently alive is the blue whale. The maximum recorded weight was 190 tonnes (209 US tons) for a specimen measuring 27.6 metres (91 ft), whereas longer ones, up to 33 metres (108 ft), have been recorded but not weighed. [11] [12] [13] It is estimated that this individual could have a mass of 250 tonnes or more.