Census of Marine Life plumbs depths to ask how many fish in the sea

From birds to sponges and slugs to squid, a decade of mapping the abundance of life in the world's oceans estimates 230,000 speciesIt has been the biggest and most comprehensive attempt ever to answer that age-old question – how many fish are there in the sea?Published today, a 10-year study of the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the world's oceans attempts just that. The Census of Marine Life, which hopes to paint a baseline of marine life, estimates there are more than 230,000 species in our oceans."From coast to the open ocean, from the shallows to the deep, from little things like microbes to large things such as fish and whales," said Patricia Miloslavich of Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela and co-senior scientist of the COML. The study also covers crabs, plankton, birds, sponges, worms, squids, sharks and slugs.A team of more than 360 scientists around the world have...

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