NEW YORK: The discovery of about 1,000 new fish species since 2008 has been reported by a census of the world’s marine species. Researchers put in efforts to review all databases to gather one definitive list of existing information of sea life known as World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS).
WoRMS co-chair Jan Mees, Chair of the European Marine Board and Director of the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in Belgium, said that WoRMS wants to make a master list of all organisms that have ever been noticed and described in the world oceans.
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Mees also said that the work is almost completed and all the historical data have been entered in the database. Experts have identified the redundant names. Eight years have been utilized by researchers in order to combine the existing databases.
It was found by the researchers that of the 419,000 species names recorded in scientific literature, about 50% of them appear to be duplicate entries. Now, the number of known marine species has been put at 228,450.
“Though a few relatively minor gaps remain, we consider the register now virtually complete with respect to species described throughout scientific history”, said Mees. Mees added that they are continually updating with newly-described species, revisions of taxonomy and also included occasional species that have been unnoticed.
