Number of described species
What you should know about this indicator
- Since many species have not yet been described, this is a large underestimate of the total number of species in the world.
- For a species to be formally described, it's description must be published in a scientific journal or book.
- Species descriptions should fulfill several criteria specified by the relevant nomencalture code, including the selection of a type specimen, a particular specimen formally associated with scientific name and description.
- The values of the numbers of described species should be used with caution as these are not always be up to date for all taxonomic groups.
- The source for each taxonomic group can be found in the IUCN Red List summary statistics, Table 1a.
- The number of described mammals excludes domesticated species like sheep, goats and dromedary camels.
- The 'mushrooms' taxonomic group includes brackets, rusts, smuts and, jelly fungi.
Related research and writing
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Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Number of described species”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Fiona Spooner, and Max Roser (2022) - “Biodiversity”. Data adapted from International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/number-of-described-species.html [online resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in DataFull citation
International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Number of described species” [dataset]. International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, “IUCN Red List Summary Statistics Table 1a” [original data]. Retrieved April 1, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/number-of-described-species.html (archived on March 4, 2026).Download
Quick download
Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.
Data API
Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.
Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-described-species.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseMetadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-described-species.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseExcel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-described-species.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests
# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-described-species.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})
# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-described-species.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()R
library(jsonlite)
# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-described-species.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-described-species.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-described-species.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear