BBC Learning English
Words in the News
26

th

August 2011

Earth may house 8.7 million species

Words in the News

© British Broadcasting Corporation 2011

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bbclearningenglish.com

A team of scientists has adopted a new approach to estimating the total number of living

species on Earth, and has come up with 8.7 million. Their findings appear in the online

journal, Public Library of Science Biology. BBC’s Paddy Clark reports:

It's generally accepted that very many species have yet to be discovered, but until now nobody

has devised a reliable way to find out just how many. Suggestions for total numbers have

ranged from 3 million to a hundred million, but most of these have been no more than

intelligent guesses.

Scientists from the Census of Marine Life devised a counting method by identifying

numerical patterns linking data on known species. They reckon that there should be about 8.7

million types of living organisms, three-quarters of them animals and the rest plants.

However, since the introduction of the current classification system by Carl Linnaeus in 1758,

only a million and a quarter have been catalogued.

The scientists warn that human activity is hastening extinctions, and they note a touch

wistfully, that many of the hitherto unknown species may vanish before we even know of

their existence.

Paddy Clark, BBC News

Words in the News

© British Broadcasting Corporation 2011

Page 2 of 2

bbclearningenglish.com

Vocabulary and definitions

devised

came up with a plan

reliable

accurate

intelligent guesses

estimates based on a rational process of thought

reckon

calculate

classification system

grouping of organisms following pre-established patterns

catalogued

identified and recorded

hastening extinctions

speeding up the disappearance of some species

wistfully

sadly

hitherto

up to now

vanish

disappear

More on this story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14643052

Read and listen to the story and the vocabulary online:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2011/06/110826_witn_species_page.shtml