Numbers - Just for Fun

During an idle moment late last night, I found myself wondering just how many insect species I've ever seen. Insects in the true sense of the word, if I were to expand it to include other 'creepy crawlies' such as spiders, millipedes, woodlice etc I'd have to categorise them as arthropods. Insects are just one subphyla in the huge entity that is Arthropoda. I'm on fairly safe ground so far, I understand what an insect is. I know what an arthropod is too. 

But then I got to wondering about whether or not I could include algae in with the plants. Surely freshwater algae, of which I see plenty up here, count as primitive plants. Don't they? Yeah, must do. But what about seaweeds? I know that marine algae, as they are properly called, are divided into red, green and brown categories. And I know that one of them is very different to the other two, only very distantly related, in fact. I thought probably the browns. Or perhaps the reds. Anyway, could I include any of them in with my plant tally?  

Eventually I clambered out of bed to check whether any algae, freshwater or otherwise, were classed as plants. They aren't. Cool, so what are they classed as then? Well...an hour or so later, and with about 50 tabs open on the laptop, I came to the conclusion that I should have just stayed in bed. 2am is for sleeping, not sitting in the dark, failing to comprehend what I'm reading on a small screen whilst being eaten by midges. 

Anyway, this evening I cranked open the laptop and tried again. There are a surprisingly large number of versions describing how life is categorised on this planet. Essentially, nobody knows, that's the simple reason. Going back to the arthropods as an example, see if you can wrap your head around the following short paragraph (and this is only from Wikipedia, it gets a whole lot more complex the deeper you dig!) 

"The phylogeny of the major extant arthropod groups has been an area of considerable interest and dispute. Recent studies strongly suggest that Crustacea, as traditionally defined, is paraphyletic, with Hexapoda having evolved from within it, so that Crustacea and Hexapoda form a clade, Pancrustacae. The position of Myriapoda, Chelicerata and Pancrustacea remains unclear as of April 2012. In some studies, Myriapoda is grouped with Chelicerata (forming Myriochelata); in other studies, Myriapoda is grouped with Pancrustacea (forming Mandibulata), or Myriapoda may be sister to Chelicerata plus Pancrustacea." 

Hope we're all crystal clear on that, at least? By the way, I'm loving that word Pancrustacea. I haven't quite figured how to casually drop it into everyday conversation yet, but I will. Somehow.

And so, after much head scratching and jiggling around with various unrelated phyla, I have come up with the following breakdown for my British PSL

• Protista (all algae, slime moulds and protists) - 111 species. 
• Fungi (encompassing both true fungi and lichens) - 562 species.
• Plants (bryophytes and vascular plants combined) - 1486 species.
• Molluscs (your typical slugs and snails plus squid, bivalves, chitons etc) - 138 species.

Now for the ever-so-slightly iffy bits...

"Selected Seashore Stuff" (ie randomers that don't really work elsewhere). I've thrown all sorts into here, including the tunicates which really should be elsewhere, plus the catch all that is "Worms". Ho hum.

• Selected Seashore Stuff (Sponges, Comb-jellies, Cnidarians, Bryozoans, Echinoderms and Tunicates) - 62 species.
• Worms (including true annelids, leeches, peanut, platyhelminth and nemertean worms) - 46 species.

OK, and now we're back into the not-quite-so-iffy bits

• Arthropods excluding insects (sea spiders, arachnids, myriapods, crustaceans, springtails etc) - 299 species
• Insects only - 2345 species
• Vertebrates - 576 species. 

Well that was fun, and it all correctly tallies up to 5624 species. So just another 376 to go in order to attain another nice round number. I'm probably not gonna manage that this year, not at this rate anyway (248 so far this year). Should make it sometime during 2020 though. 

So what, if anything, has this wee exercise accomplished? Nothing really, nothing at all. Thanks for reading.

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Well actually, it does provide me with some extra impetus to hit a few nicely rounded numbers. 299 species of arthropods (excluding insects) is an exceptionally niggling number, just one more will put me at a far happier number. And those 1486 plants? 1500 must be easily attainable, so there's another target number to aim for. 

Now then, what about those 576 vertebrates. Hmmm, yes I do like that one. I need 24 more to hit a pleasing 600 species, but finding new vertebrates doesn't come so easily nowadays.  In fact, since January 2016 I've added 13 fish, 1 bird and 2 mammals to my PSL vertebrate tally - that's just 16 in the last three and a half years! I can stake out the odd bat roost (Greater Horseshoe is an 'easy' one) and I could always twitch the Loch Lomond wallabies or the reintroduced beavers. To be utterly honest though, neither of the latter two species appeal in the slightest. Harvest Mouse, Yellow-necked Mouse, Hazel Dormouse, rare birds and fish - now they appeal! Oh, and there's a fistful of amphibians that are all perfectly gettable too: Natterjack Toad, Pool and Perez' Water Frogs, Alpine Newt and Midwife Toad all beckon. Just a case of my being several hundred miles too far north for all of them. Well, I can add fish from here, but not the rest. 

Pancrustacea just doesn't come much better than this! And yes, that's my hand in the pic :) 

I'll end this silly post with a suitably silly song. It'll all be back to normal again soon....