A SEARCH THAT CONTINUES
Sunday, March 1st, 2009Just how many different kinds of living things exist in the world is a question people have been trying to answer for the past 2,000 years. One of the first to attempt an answer was the Greek philosopher Aristotle. He identified about 1,000 different species of plants and animals. In 1758, the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus identified about 12,000 plants and animal species. Today we have lists of some 265,000 different plant species and 1,700,000 and animals. Although the lists are far from complete, nobody knows how many new species are out there which are yet to be discovered.