Researchers at the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) have discovered some 1,451 sea creatures in the last year which include 131 members of the goby family as well as 122 sharks and rays.
The taxonomists undertaking the daunting task of compiling a list of all of the sea species in the world not only added more than a thousand new species, they also eliminated 190,400 species which were previously listed, citing duplicate entries, according to a Nature News report.
Duplicate entries removed from the list went as far back as 2008. Even after their removal and the roughly 10,000 or so species sitting in laboratory jars waiting to be identified by researchers, there are still 228,445 species on the list.
The WoRMS team, which is hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute (FMI) in Belgium, is composed of more than 200 editors from around the world.
WoRMS co-chair and director of the FMI, Jan Mees, was quoted in the Nature report as having said that the team compiling and analyzing the marine life data has “nearly completed the inventory of all marine organisms that have ever been seen and described”.
The organization’s latest update was published on March 12, 2015. The update includes the recently discovered Ruby Seadragon, which is the third and latest species of seadragons to have been discovered.
The Washington Post reports that the goal of the researchers participating in the archival program is to create an easy accessible database of existing species in order to reduce the instances of misidentification.
Are you surprised at how many duplicate entries were removed from the list?
