Over 270 New Species Discovered in 2018!

[suspsy]

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/december/over-270-new-species-discovered-in-2018.html?utm_source=fb-link-post-20181227-jd&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=news

It's been a great year for paleontology! 

[Ravonium]

Just a heads up, the figure in the title of the article and this thread is misleading when talking about palaeontology (and actually, when talking about biology in general), as it counts extant species (and for some reason minerals). Further down in the article, it says only 36 of these new species were extinct (and even when you only count living things, the figure isn't over 270).

[suspsy]

The title would only be misleading if I had said that they were all extinct animals, which I clearly did not do. And 36 new species is most definitely a great year in paleontology.

[Shonisaurus]

Fortunately, many of the 270 species of animals are still alive on Earth with us.

[Neosodon]

Given that there is an estimated 9 million species on the planet, 270 doesn't sound like allot. The discoveries themselves are certainly fascinating and nothing to downplay. But in terms of quantity it doesn't seem that impressive.

[Halichoeres]

Given that there is an estimated 9 million species on the planet, 270 doesn't sound like allot. The discoveries themselves are certainly fascinating and nothing to downplay. But in terms of quantity it doesn't seem that impressive.

The article makes clear that that's just new species with which people associated with this particular museum were involved. If you added in workers from other museums, universities, etc., the number is certainly in the thousands.