WoRMS catalogue downsizes ocean life (BBC0

By Jonathan Amos
Science Correspondent

A mammoth effort to catalogue all known ocean life is nearly complete.

It has taken taxonomic experts eight years to pull together all existing databases and compile one super-definitive list, known as the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS).

Of the 419,000 species names recorded in the scientific literature, nearly half (190,400) have been shown to be duplicate entries.

One species of sea snail even had 113 different names.

The WoRMS editors have now put the number of species known to science at 228,450.



Histiophryne psychedelica: A new Indonesian frogfish. Most of the entries in the register are animals

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more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31851525