120,000 different species

[MikhailsDinos]

I was watching animal planet yesterday. They were saying that the earth has 120,000 different species of mantis.... I dont know about you, But thats a lot.

I'm guessing this forum has about 50 or less species we are working with right now? This means you will see & keep new species your whole life, Thanks to the people that go out to find these species & the poeple like Yen, to keep the species going in captivity. What a nice hobby indeed.

I thought this was very interesting!

 

[Rick]

I don't think that is accurate. Thought it was somewhere around 2K?

 

[MikhailsDinos]

Rick,

You are probily right about this. You dont know when it comes to tv? Through, That is still a lot.

I don't think that is accurate. Thought it was somewhere around 2K?

 

[hibiscusmile]

Yea, I only heard of the 2000 to, but what do I know? I know if there are that many alive we would have em here in the USA :lol:

 

[Ben.M]

Yup, there is 2000-2500 species of mantis in the world and probs a load that we hav not yet discovered

 

[OGIGA]

We probably have over 50 species floating between all of us. Yen's oothecae chart showed quite a lot.

 

[chrisboy101]

i thought that there where only a few hundred sp. and your right hibiscus there most likely many interesting exotic species to be discovered

 

[Christian]

Hi.

There are about 2350-2400 described species of mantids. New species are described regularly, but there aren't loads to be discovered. There are just very few every year. This will continue for some years, but due to habitat destruction there will be a deadline some time in the near future at which no new species will be discovered any more. Then, the number of known species will drop as several genera will loose species due to a taxonomic revision. Not to mention the ones that get extinct. Mantids are large insects and the great bulk has already been discovered. Other taxa may reveal new species for a much longer period of time (e.g. beetles).

The time when the world was still full of remote places which offered fantastic things to uncover for adventurers and scientists is gone forever. There is still a lot of stuff to be discovered, but mostly in already known or exploited areas. Pristine landscapes are almost gone. I visited all three major rainforests and there was only once that I really were in a rainforest that was undisturbed for hundreds of kilometers. The best place I ever were. However, this all will end sooner or later. Larger or smaller patches will be all that remains.

Regards,

Christian

 

[Ben.M]

All the more reason for us to keep breeding and raising insects

 

[robo mantis]

I always heard 1,600-2,000.

 

[MikhailsDinos]

Still 2350-2400 is a lot of species to work with still. All this is very interesting! Growing up in south Africa, I saw a lot of mantis species. I'm going back to south Africa, to visit family & will see whats out there?

 

[Morpheus uk]

Wish i could be a super smart entomolygist going out to newly discovered rain forests and discovering new bugs, got the super smart thing goin down thoug :lol:

 

[buddhistsoldier88]

All i see is hearsay. There is no way to know how many species there are unless we quit cutting down so much forestry and even then it would take SEVERAL lifetimes to explore every nook and cranny, every leaf and vine and so on and so forth. 120 k is a lot i admit but its possible isnt it? Look at the #'s of fish and reptiles. Insects were around MILLIONS of years before ANY vertebrate was around. No one can say for sure how many species there are.

 

[Orin]

120 k is a lot i admit but its possible isnt it?

No, of course not.

... unless Bigfoot is keeping 117,000+ of those species in his hidden lair. Areas such as Antarctica, the deep ocean and outer space that humankind has not thoroughly explored are not habitats for new mantis species. Science is about what can be proven, not what can't be unproven. If you're claiming there "could be" a whole planet containing nothing but flies and mantids where the other 117,000+ species live it could never truly be unproven until every last planet in the universe was thoroughly explored. But then you could say they may exist in an alternate universe...

 

[yen_saw]

unfortunately, the rate of extinction is faster than the rate of discovery of new species so more likely we will never reach 120k species existing at the same time, especially when human population is expanding exponentially.

 

[hibiscusmile]

That is too much for me, I only have so much time, the scientist can find them and I will take what is available, I cannot be searching the universe for all them bugs! PLUS... I do not have any NASA diapers :lol: that's a good one, so I get 1 more laugh :lol:

 

[Christian]

All i see is hearsay. There is no way to know how many species there are unless we quit cutting down so much forestry and even then it would take SEVERAL lifetimes to explore every nook and cranny, every leaf and vine and so on and so forth. 120 k is a lot i admit but its possible isnt it? Look at the #'s of fish and reptiles. Insects were around MILLIONS of years before ANY vertebrate was around. No one can say for sure how many species there are.

Oh, yes, one can estimate the approximate number of species for orders like Mantodea. This is no hearsay, but scientific facts.

The scientific history of mantids starts with Linnaeus in ca. 1758.

Until 1945 there were about 2000 species described, but it was assumed at that time that only 1800 had been described.

The tropical forest cover then was still about 90% of the natural one, with few exceptions.

Between 1945 and today, that's 60 years, "just" about 300-400 additional species were described, compared to the 2000 species described between 1758 and 1945, say 200 years. Today, the remaining forest cover is about 15-20%. We lost 70% in just 60 years, now try to foresee the future...

Most described species today are just reajustments. Really new ones are relatively rare. And this will end when no explorable habitat is left. Mantids do not inhabit microhabitats. Their distribution is rather wide. Even if there should be 1000 addititional species to describe, there will be by no means several ten thousands of species of Mantodea!

 

[AFK]

All i see is hearsay. There is no way to know how many species there are unless we quit cutting down so much forestry and even then it would take SEVERAL lifetimes to explore every nook and cranny, every leaf and vine and so on and so forth. 120 k is a lot i admit but its possible isnt it? Look at the #'s of fish and reptiles. Insects were around MILLIONS of years before ANY vertebrate was around. No one can say for sure how many species there are.

this commits 2 logical fallacies:

1. appeal to probability

2. ignores the entire process of extrapolation used by scientists to come up with that 2000-2500 figure above.

 

[allenator]

120,000 seems a little far fetched to me.