Question: How many identified species off fish have been discovered? and how many are there still believe to be unknown?

Hi Jamesy,

Fish are the most diverse group of all the vertebrates, that is the group of animals with a backbone. There are just over 30,000 species of fish. This is a lot especially when compared next to birds which is at about 10,000 which is the next most diverse. Mammals are at the back of the pack with about 5500.

With regards to undiscovered species. Some estimates suggest that about 1-5% of vertebrates are still undiscovered. For fish it is likely to be on the higher end so lets guess at there is still another 10% to be found, this would suggest another 3000. But this is just a guess, being something undiscovered means that we don’t know about it.

The other problem with undiscovered species, is that species move around depending on changes in the landscape, and to make things harder, species evolve. So in a place where only one type of fish occurs at the moment, in a hundred years, there could be different types of fish due to evolution.