The world has 8.7 million species (but we've hardly met any of them)

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/the-world-has-87-million-species-but-weve-hardly-met-any-of-them-2342752.html

here are probably about 8.7 million species of living things, the vast majority of them undiscovered, according to what is believed to be the most authoritative estimate ever carried out of the scale of life on earth.

So far, about 1.2 million species, ranging from microscopic insects to the blue whale, the largest living creature, have been described, but it has always been recognised that the true total is very much higher. Previous estimates have ranged from three million, right up to 100 million, but the new figure, based on an innovative analytical technique, dramatically narrows the range of possibilities.

The assessment, by scientists from the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year international study of life in the oceans which reported last year, indicates there are 6.5 million species living on the land and 2.2 million – about a quarter of the total – in the oceans.

Yet 86 per cent of the terrestrial species and 91 per cent of the marine species have yet to be discovered, described and catalogued, with many of them likely to be small creatures in inaccessible locations, such as beetles in the rainforest canopy or marine animals in the deep ocean (although large animals are still being found in countries such as Vietnam and Papua New Guinea).