[HN Gopher] Biologists discover four new octopus species
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Biologists discover four new octopus species
        
       Author : chapulin
       Score  : 178 points
       Date   : 2024-02-19 08:00 UTC (15 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
        
       | j13n wrote:
       | Nueva Pescanova is already sizing up cages.
       | 
       | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59667645
        
         | 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
         | I find it weird that people won't eat meat and poultry, but
         | still eat fish and seafood and sometimes cite environmental
         | reasons.
         | 
         | Most fish are caught and some sea based farming efforts have
         | been pretty terrible for the environment.
         | 
         | I reckon if you want to eat meat still you should mostly be
         | eating chicken.
        
           | lukan wrote:
           | "I reckon if you want to eat meat still you should mostly be
           | eating chicken. "
           | 
           | But favorably chicken that has seen the sun and real soil to
           | pick in, not only on the way to the slaughterhouse.
           | 
           | And there is nothing inheritently wrong with fishing, it is
           | just that the way it is usually done, is quite horrific. But
           | there is somewhat certified ethical fishing. Or local
           | fishermen.
        
             | meyum33 wrote:
             | At this point wouldn't it be easier to artificially select
             | for traits that make the chicken mind more tolerant of poor
             | conditions? Like if we can have consciousless chicken then
             | it wouldn't matter the condition they grow under?
        
               | abound wrote:
               | Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has you covered here,
               | with sentient cows engineered to be ecstatic about the
               | thought of being killed for meat.
        
               | Filligree wrote:
               | This seems problematic in a different way.
        
               | mywacaday wrote:
               | Like this guy
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
        
               | Applejinx wrote:
               | That is one heck of a story. Salient to discussion about
               | consciousness: to what extent does the ability to _act_
               | like awareness, count as awareness for the purposes of
               | outside observers?
        
               | c22 wrote:
               | You would need a clearer working model of consciousnes to
               | be able to know whether your efforts were succeeding. But
               | this is the idea behind lab-grown meat, just don't grow
               | the brain at all and you don't have to worry as much.
        
               | lukan wrote:
               | It sounds way easier, to continue to pretend, that
               | animals don't have feelings. And in general not know too
               | much of the meat factories. Which is why many people
               | choose this approach.
               | 
               | Also like the sibling comment said, not really possible
               | with our tech and knowledge. Lab grown meat would be the
               | way to go to achieve it.
        
               | frereubu wrote:
               | This guy is way ahead of you:
               | https://www.wired.com/2012/02/headless-chicken-solution/
               | 
               | I imagine the meat would be pretty tasteless though.
        
             | 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
             | The massive problem with fishing is that the fish are wild.
             | They need to get replaced by nature. You can't scale up the
             | operation. Add to that pollution, warming seas, and you're
             | disturbing a system way too much.
             | 
             | What's the plan once the oceans are messed up permanently?
             | 
             | At this moment, I think factory farmed chicken would have
             | less impact on the environment.
        
           | poulpy123 wrote:
           | because people feel less close from fish and seashell than
           | birds, and less close than birds than mammals.
        
           | moffkalast wrote:
           | I think it's more to do with us being able to empathize more
           | easily with other land animals because we're biologically
           | similar. Fish can't scream in pain or show basically any
           | emotion we'd recognize at all. They're so different it's like
           | looking at a wiggling steak, so it's trivial to dismiss them
           | as simple automatons.
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | >Most fish are caught
           | 
           | Overfishing aside, I guess you would most often find people
           | that believe hunting /fishing for your food is more ethical
           | than farming it
        
             | ArtDev wrote:
             | Which is absurd when you realize that commercial fishing
             | kills up to half or more than what it catches.
        
             | adrian_b wrote:
             | Hunting/fishing for food was really more ethical many
             | millennia ago, when humans were fewer than wild terrestrial
             | vertebrates.
             | 
             | Nowadays, there are many more humans and domestic animals
             | than wild terrestrial vertebrates, so hunting could not
             | sustain any non-negligible fraction of the humans.
             | 
             | The modern methods of fishing are much too wasteful, so
             | neither fishing has any future.
        
           | graemep wrote:
           | There are other reasons than environmental for eating fish
           | but not meat.
           | 
           | I used to be pescatarian and my main reason for that was
           | factory farming. Once reason I now eat meat is that it has
           | become a lot easier to buy meat that has been well treated.
        
           | ArtDev wrote:
           | Before I was a programmer, I was a marine biologist and also
           | worked as a fish farmer.
           | 
           | By virtually all metrics, intensive land-based animal farming
           | is much harder on the environment. Also, in terms of animal
           | welfare, its super sketchy even with animals labeled organic.
           | 
           | The misinformation around fish farming is absurd. I think
           | people want to believe in the myth that commercial fishing is
           | a couple guys in a wooden boat; when its actually a floating
           | factory discarding up to half or more of what it kills.
           | 
           | There are many aquatic things I won't eat but mostly it is of
           | the "wild fish" variety (overfishing, pollution, mercury,
           | bycatch). I worked a single season as a fisheries observer in
           | Alaska. The destruction was maddening.
           | 
           | I put wild fish in quotes because many times they are raised
           | in a hatcheries then released into the wild. Which has ruined
           | the gene pool of salmon in places that do this.
           | 
           | After a few years raising chickens at my home farm, I became
           | pescatarian. I drew an arbitrary line at intelligence where I
           | wouldn't eat anything as smart or smarter than a chicken.
           | 
           | Anyhow, avoiding farmed fish while eating land meat is really
           | misinformed. I think the meat industry and commercial fishing
           | industries have managed to completely misinform the American
           | public (and a few well-meaning but misleading documentaries
           | on the subject).
           | 
           | America doesn't not farm very many aquatic things besides
           | oysters, trout and catfish. Which are all very very green
           | industries. I like to bring these ones up in conversations
           | about this topic.
        
             | 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
             | At the moment my line of thinking is "what's easier to
             | engineer around?"
             | 
             | I'm not saying we should eat "land meat". I'm saying
             | specifically chicken. I believe they are the most cost
             | effective of the meats.
             | 
             | Of the farmed fish, did you single out trout and catfish
             | because they are green, or has the industry in general
             | improved?
        
           | anthomtb wrote:
           | I refuse to eat Octopus based on its level of sentience.
           | 
           | I regularly eat pig despite a higher level of sentience. And
           | despite having had far more interactions with pigs compared
           | to Octopus.
           | 
           | Point being, we humans really are not rational with our food
           | choices.
        
           | LazyMans wrote:
           | It takes some effort, but you can buy responsibly
           | raised/caught seafood.
           | https://www.seafoodwatch.org/recommendations/download-
           | consum...
        
         | pvaldes wrote:
         | > Nueva Pescanova is already sizing up cages.
         | 
         | Please don't make false accusations about a third part without
         | a minimum understanding of the matter first.
         | 
         | Nueva Pescanova has nothing to do with this case, and I doubt
         | that they would be interested at all in breeding a deep sea
         | (and, most probably, non edible) species.
        
           | bertil wrote:
           | Nothing to do with the controversy, just curious: Why would
           | deep-sea octopuses not be edible?
        
             | pvaldes wrote:
             | Deep sea cephalopods accumulate ammonia in their body as a
             | buoyant device. This way, they don't need to spend so much
             | energy swimming. Ammonia is fairly toxic, so they would
             | taste either like pee, or like poison. I had touched some
             | of this animals and the smell of rancid fat and urine last
             | for days in your hands
             | 
             | Also if you put this animals at the surface they will
             | literally burst from inside and turn into a mushy mess. I
             | had explained this yet a few times before, but for some
             | reason this particular Muusoctopus nursery is a recurrent
             | history on HN.
             | 
             | Octopuses are benthic, so they could store a different
             | amount of ammonia, but my bet would be that such partially
             | disintegrated octopus product would look and taste awful.
             | None of the other species of deep sea octopuses are fished
             | commercially.
        
               | adolph wrote:
               | The ammonia content of Greenland Shark doesn't prevent
               | them from being a treat:
               | 
               |  _The traditional method begins with gutting and
               | beheading a shark and placing it in a shallow hole dug in
               | gravelly sand, with the cleaned cavity resting on a small
               | mound of sand. The shark is then covered with sand and
               | gravel, and stones are placed on top of the sand in order
               | to press the fluids out of the body. The shark ferments
               | in this fashion for six to twelve weeks, depending on the
               | season. Following this curing period, the shark is cut
               | into strips and hung to dry for several months. During
               | this drying period, a brown crust will develop, which is
               | removed prior to cutting the shark into small pieces and
               | serving._
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl
        
               | Swizec wrote:
               | From your link:
               | 
               | > Those new to it [Hakarl] may gag involuntarily at the
               | first attempt to eat it because of the high ammonia
               | content.
        
               | shard wrote:
               | Joke's on you, we're into that:
               | 
               | Hongeo-hoe is a type of fermented fish dish from Korea's
               | Jeolla province. Hongeo-hoe is made from skate and emits
               | a very strong, characteristic ammonia-like odor
               | 
               | Skates (hongeo) are cartilaginous fish that excrete uric
               | acid through the skin, rather than by urinating as other
               | animals do. As they ferment, ammonia is produced, which
               | helps preserve the flesh and gives the fish its
               | distinctive, powerful odor.
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongeo-hoe
        
               | pvaldes wrote:
               | I know that some sharks and rays had a more or less
               | strong pee taste. I personally dislike it. Skate is the
               | only dish that I would classify as dog food grade. The
               | line between tasty and nasty is very thin in those fishes
               | and requires a skilled chef.
               | 
               | But I'm perfectly fine with the idea of some people
               | loving the pee taste, or eating rotten shark meat, or
               | urinating in other people's mouths while eating carp
               | croquettes. As long as those people is not me, good for
               | them. I'll pass. Thank you.
               | 
               | Feel free to eat this new discovered octopus before any
               | other human and tell us about your experience. My bet is
               | that will be memorable for all the wrong reasons
               | 
               | In any case, skate meat should be forbidden by
               | conservation issues. Their populations are very fragile
               | and on a sharp decline, and to eat this animals is very
               | irresponsible.
        
               | airstrike wrote:
               | I just wanted to say I thoroughly appreciate your
               | contribution to this thread. Equal parts intellectually
               | interesting and belly-laugh worthy
        
               | flir wrote:
               | Wait, that can't be right, you must be talking about some
               | particular species, they're everywhere in Briti-- oh.
               | Common Skate is critically endangered.
               | 
               | It's also about PS8.50 for 500g.
               | 
               | ffs. We are, collectively, utter morons aren't we?
        
           | graemep wrote:
           | I think its pretty obvious the comment you are replying to
           | was a joke.
        
           | plasma_beam wrote:
           | Come now, it wouldn't be a normal HN conversation on
           | octopuses if we didn't debate whether to eat them or not.
        
           | u32480932048 wrote:
           | TYFYS, doing your part to Stop The Spread of dis-and-or-
           | misinformation!
           | 
           | I usually accept any given internet comment as unimpeachable
           | truth, and was just about to fire off a bunch of angry hate
           | mail to Nueva Pescanova because of this specific thing!
           | 
           | Gosh, would I have felt silly to find out that they're not
           | literally building cages for this particular species!
           | 
           | Do you have a source for your claim that nobody in this
           | company is currently planning to build cages 10,000'
           | underwater for a species that was just discovered?
        
         | piombisallow wrote:
         | From an ecological perspective, farming is probably better than
         | fishing wild species no?
        
           | kjkjadksj wrote:
           | Nah fishing wild is better assuming your catch rate is
           | sustainable for the population. Farming means taking acres of
           | natural area with a careful web of ecological interactions
           | that took millions of years to develop as such, and replacing
           | all of that with a temperamental monocrop sometimes as far as
           | the eye can see. It would be like if we fished by first
           | sterilizing the ocean and then growing up some goldfish.
        
       | MattGaiser wrote:
       | Those who claim there is little left to discover on Earth clearly
       | haven't bother to look. This is awesome.
        
         | mykowebhn wrote:
         | There'd be a lot more if it weren't for the shenanigans of a
         | certain bipedal species.
        
       | asah wrote:
       | Deploy a fleet of unmanned drone subs with cameras, then use AI
       | to filter for possibly-new creatures? Seems like you'd find
       | 1000s...
        
         | BelleOfTheBall wrote:
         | It's not exactly that simple, especially the part where AI
         | would somehow differentiate extremely visually similar species
         | from each other, while in near-complete darkness and on the
         | move.
        
           | thaumasiotes wrote:
           | > especially the part where AI would somehow differentiate
           | extremely visually similar species from each other
           | 
           | We have an AI for this exact task now, Seek by iNaturalist.
           | It keeps getting rave reviews.
           | 
           | The only problem is that it's terrible at identifying things.
           | I have a picture of an elephant seal that it is certain
           | actually shows a clouded monitor lizard.
        
             | justincormack wrote:
             | Seek is not "by" iNaturalist. It does use models generated
             | from their data.
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | > Seek is not "by" iNaturalist.
               | 
               | This is one of the stupidest comments I've ever seen. The
               | app is provided by iNaturalist, and its name is,
               | literally, "Seek by iNaturalist".
               | 
               | Check it out: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/seek_app
        
             | BelleOfTheBall wrote:
             | I've used Seek and, yes, if this is what the current
             | capabilities are like, we are not ready to use AI for new
             | species discovery.
        
         | melagonster wrote:
         | watching video is not bottle neck. but if is helpful that
         | scientists get more budgets.
        
         | pompino wrote:
         | Its a good idea in theory, but visibility is poor below 1000m
         | or so, cameras are useless without light, and flood lights have
         | limited range.
        
       | begueradj wrote:
       | We know more about the Moon than about the seas and oceans.
        
         | Mountain_Skies wrote:
         | This might sounds snarky, but I'm serious when I say if we want
         | to know more about the oceans, Hollywood is going to have to
         | come up with a better ocean competitor to Star Trek than
         | 'SeaQuest DSV'. For better or worse, public interest is driven
         | by popular entertainment, and there's maybe one interesting
         | under the water movie once a decade.
        
           | DiscourseFan wrote:
           | We see the stars every night, but rarely dip below the
           | surface of the ocean.
        
           | thaumasiotes wrote:
           | It's also easier to get to the moon than it is to get to the
           | deep ocean. And once you're there, the environment is more
           | welcoming.
        
         | CarRamrod wrote:
         | We know more about the Sun than melanoma
        
         | pompino wrote:
         | That is an interesting opinion, what sort of knowledge are
         | referring to ?
        
         | twic wrote:
         | Well at least we know exactly how many species of octopus on
         | the moon.
        
       | spaceman_2020 wrote:
       | I can't understand why all these billionaires keep funding
       | rockets instead of lidar equipped submarines
       | 
       | Explore Earth before exploring outside Earth
        
         | michelb wrote:
         | Money. Billions are not enough apparently.
        
         | Xeyz0r wrote:
         | Totally agree. While space exploration is an exciting endeavor,
         | it is essential to prioritize the exploration of Earth first.
         | By understanding our own planet, we can develop the knowledge,
         | technologies, and inspiration necessary for responsible and
         | successful exploration beyond Earth.
        
           | spaceman_2020 wrote:
           | All these lidar projects keep finding ancient ruins and
           | structures in the Amazonian rainforests. Imagine what a
           | planet wide lidar project would find, especially in coastal
           | regions that are now underwater.
        
         | DarkNova6 wrote:
         | Because it is not about science.
        
         | snet0 wrote:
         | I think rockets have this unmatched spectacle, especially for
         | those born in a certain time. Submarine exploration is _really_
         | cool, but I don 't imagine the launching of a new submarine
         | explorer is going to match the momentous-ness of the launch of
         | a new rocket.
         | 
         | There's also just a kind of social narrative issue, where space
         | is cool because sci-fi and aliens and astrophysics, while the
         | deep oceans are scary because dark and unknown and shipwrecks.
         | I guess it's like "if we explore space, we might find alien
         | life; if we explore the oceans, we might find a really weird
         | fish".
        
           | devsda wrote:
           | Yeah, space and oceans have always had these contrasting
           | images.
           | 
           | Space is equated to future(potential expedition target for
           | humanity leaving earth) while oceans remind us of the past
           | i.e. submerged & lost cities, ships etc. and honestly very
           | few people are excited to explore the past.
           | 
           | Space is also out there and oceans are here. You can point to
           | the sky and say that's what we are aiming and people will
           | relate compared to "we are planning to explore xyz trench 500
           | miles north of abc island".
        
         | SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
         | I recall a billionaire dying recently in their submarine
         | project.
         | 
         | Of course, the rocket billionaires don't generally ride on the
         | rockets themselves. So that's safer for them personally.
        
         | im3w1l wrote:
         | Well going into space has clear advantages for our species.
         | Firstly, it provides a backup in case something happens to
         | earth, like if it gets hit by an asteroid. It could also
         | potentially be untouched by a nasty war on earth, but odds are
         | it would get dragged into it. Secondly there are commercial
         | possibilities like mining in space, or space real estate .
         | Thirdly, astronomy is one of two ways we expand our knowledge
         | of physics (the other being particle accelerators), and new
         | physics can lead to good things down the line.
         | 
         | There are benefits of exploring the oceans too, like maybe
         | finding some missing link species and learning about biology
         | maybe some geology. But they seem much lesser to me.
        
         | stetrain wrote:
         | There are economic and political incentives to build rockets
         | and space infrastructure.
         | 
         | Less so for submarines exploring the depths of the ocean, even
         | if the latter is equally or more interesting from a scientific
         | exploration perspective.
        
         | ouraf wrote:
         | it's easier to make a case for exploiting space without any
         | nation nagging at you about borders and sovereignty than it is
         | for deep sea.
        
         | u32480932048 wrote:
         | Submarines? whaddabout the children? whaddabout the climate?
         | whaddabout Ukraine?
        
       | Xeyz0r wrote:
       | The discovery of these new octopus species contributes to our
       | understanding of the diversity and evolution of cephalopods. It
       | also highlights the importance of ongoing research and
       | exploration to uncover the hidden wonders of the marine
       | environment.
        
         | jounus wrote:
         | Hello ChatGPT
        
           | Xeyz0r wrote:
           | I'll take that as a compliment
        
             | FergusArgyll wrote:
             | Can you explain the navier stokes equation using a simple
             | analogy? I will tip $20 for a good answer
        
             | hombre_fatal wrote:
             | It really did read like a trivial claim made by a backlink
             | blog spammer.
        
       | verisimi wrote:
       | > News that the world's first commercial octopus farm is closer
       | to becoming reality has been met with dismay by scientists and
       | conservationists. They argue such intelligent "sentient"
       | creatures - considered able to feel pain and emotions - should
       | never be commercially reared for food.
       | 
       | I really don't get the dismay. Sheep, cows, fish even, feel pain
       | and probably feel emotions. So why stop now? It's such an
       | arbitrary line.
        
         | yreg wrote:
         | Any line is arbitrary by definition.
         | 
         | However, the current consensus is that consciousness/sentience
         | is a gradient. The higher the sentience, the higher the ability
         | to experience (anything, including pain and emotions).
         | 
         | We believe humans to be more sentient than octopi, which are
         | more sentient than cows, which are more sentient than fish,
         | which are more sentient than yeast.
         | 
         | We might be wrong of course. It's probably impossible to even
         | ever find out. But no one cares about hurting yeast.
        
         | tbitrust wrote:
         | Imagine human beings farmed for food by an alien civilisation
         | that has "debates" on whether it's ethical or not to eat homo-
         | sapiens.
         | 
         | They have centuries and centuries to settle the question while
         | rearing and killing billions of human beings each year.
         | 
         | N.B. The price of baby meat is higher because it's more tender
         | or whatever.
        
           | c22 wrote:
           | Imagine an ecosystem where living things don't eat eachother
           | and live in full cooperation and harmony. No chance to ingest
           | the biological building blocks created by other organisms. No
           | evolutionary pressure to develop defenses or hunting
           | strategies, etc...
           | 
           | Now ask yourself if the level of _sentience_ that develops in
           | this environment is satisfactory. Is there even a chance of
           | developing thinking matter that can have a debate about
           | ethics?
        
             | datameta wrote:
             | I recently read a sci-fi short story that describes an
             | alien forest that has no predation, only vicious instant
             | scavenging the moment something dies. The colonists wear
             | light-suits to prevent brutal death because only the dead
             | indigenous lifeforms create no light.
        
           | pvaldes wrote:
           | "Mum nature is so wise that made babies leak shit, and smell
           | like shit, as a clear warning that we aren't supposed to eat
           | them". (pvaldes 2024)
           | 
           | Fortunately we could teach this aliens about the delicacy of
           | octopus farming.
        
         | 8jef wrote:
         | Traditions (old habits + time passed) and rationalizing make
         | people comfortable with eating most animals.
         | 
         | Then, it's easy to grow a conscience when confronted to trendy
         | newish things like so-called sentient animals we never really
         | ate before.
         | 
         | This is a good thing. Growing the masse's consciousness through
         | new fads and phenomenons is a great way to create cognitive
         | dissonance that contribute to changing old habits. Even if one
         | will always encounter resistance to change.
        
         | HelloMcFly wrote:
         | > So why stop now? It's such an arbitrary line.
         | 
         | Speaking personally, I wish we'd stopped sooner. I'm not here
         | to say all meat is bad and everyone should be vegan, but I
         | don't feel it's out of bounds to be dismayed that we're
         | expanding the barbarity to new animals that clearly appear to
         | have a form of higher intelligence.
         | 
         | I'm not the arbiter of truth on this, but I'm sad when I see
         | pigs in factory farms, and I'm every bit as dismayed to see us
         | expanding this to cephalopods just the same as if we expanded
         | this to domestic canines.
        
         | lolinder wrote:
         | To anyone else who got confused--this isn't a quote from TFA,
         | it's from the article linked by another comment:
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39427703
        
           | verisimi wrote:
           | Oh sorry!
        
         | globular-toast wrote:
         | Two wrongs don't make a right. There are also some other
         | arguments in TFA.
        
         | crawancon wrote:
         | I think it's because they are very intelligent vs fish or
         | sheep. The arbitrary line seems to be intelligence but I am not
         | saying it's a good line.
        
           | pvaldes wrote:
           | Fishes can be very intelligent in fact. Many are more clever
           | than mammals of its same size for sure.
           | 
           | They can do basically anything that a bird does, but
           | underwater, and also a lot of tricks that we can't do.
           | 
           | There is not a single bird or mammal crystal transparent, or
           | electrical, or bioluminiscent, or that could change their
           | color at will in seconds. If I remember correctly, the
           | vertebrates with the biggest brain/body weight ratio, or the
           | fastest movement registered, are fishes.
        
         | kjkjadksj wrote:
         | Who is to say a plant does or doesn't like getting ripped apart
         | either? You can take this logic further and realize its all
         | just culural biases. Life is life at the cellular level, we all
         | have mitochondria and similar fundamental metabolisms. Yet when
         | those cells become a complex organism we start to get a sense
         | of bias toward complex life. Even more so when we start
         | considering concious thought. All that being said its still
         | just bias towards one specific niche of life, that of a
         | multicellular organism with a human centric definition of
         | thought or consciousness. I'm sure many a vegetarians still
         | swat at flies without considering how ironic that is.
        
         | ArtDev wrote:
         | Pigs are really smart, too. It's just more of a mainstream
         | thing to see on a menu.
        
       | didgetmaster wrote:
       | Scientists estimate that there are nearly 9 million species
       | currently living on Earth and far less than a third of them have
       | been identified.
       | 
       | https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/biodiversi...
        
         | lupusreal wrote:
         | How many of these unidentified species are animals scientists
         | gave seen before, but previously considered to be members of
         | another very closely related species? It seems like that is how
         | most new species discoveries work; not the discovery of an
         | animal never before seen but rather the discovery that one
         | previously documented species is actually two species.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | Which calls into question the actual point. Perhaps species
           | as a category is too fine-grained.
        
           | iteratethis wrote:
           | A species' discovery is never about first "seen", it's first
           | described. There's no way to know whom first saw it.
           | 
           | Your assumption regarding splitting known species is wrong as
           | it comes to numbers. It often happens for birds but this
           | doesn't move the needle as there's only 10K birds.
           | 
           | Almost every species on this planet is an arthropod and most
           | are not described. It's trivially easy to "discover" new
           | ones. Go to a bio-diverse area (say a jungle) and fill a
           | wheelbarrow with soil. Filter the dirt and describe anything
           | you find. It will take you forever but there will be dozens
           | if not hundreds of "new" species. The main bottleneck is not
           | finding them, it's describing them, which is very time
           | consuming.
           | 
           | Put some specialized lights up in the same area at night. One
           | remote site I attended in Colombia discovered on average 20
           | new species of moth every single day. There's expected to be
           | 150K moth species, which still may be an underestimation.
           | 
           | And this doesn't even describe the truly tiny organisms
           | living in soil and rivers and oceans.
           | 
           | As it comes to species, the public has a bias for mammals and
           | birds. Combined they're about 17-18K species only. Not even a
           | drop in the ocean. You can split each of them into 10
           | separate species and this still doesn't do anything to
           | inflate the total amount of species.
        
         | pompino wrote:
         | Its a mostly made-up number, until all of them are actually
         | identified.
        
           | bobbylarrybobby wrote:
           | It's made up, but definitely a better estimate than both
           | 2^100 and the current number of known species. I imagine one
           | way to obtain a coarse estimate would be fitting the number
           | of known species over time to a curve like N-e^-kt curve and
           | then using N as the estimate. Coarse, but not terrible if you
           | can quantify the expected error.
        
           | bo1024 wrote:
           | Of course any estimates that scientists make are "made up".
           | But estimating the number of unseen species is a very old
           | problem in statistics with a lot of rigorous research,
           | including an important approach by Alan Turing.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unseen_species_problem
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good%E2%80%93Turing_frequency_.
           | ..
           | 
           | For intuition of how this is possible, imagine you sample k
           | butterflies independently and all of them come from different
           | species. By the birthday paradox, if there were less than
           | k^2/2 different species, you would expect to see at least one
           | pair from the same species, so you can estimate that there
           | are more than k^2/2 different species.
        
             | pompino wrote:
             | With statistics you can estimate anything and everything,
             | in multiple ways. I'll start giving due importance to this
             | approach when the 9 million number is shown to be accurate.
             | Until then, color me skeptical.
        
       | fatkam wrote:
       | octopus are great... so far from humans in the evolution tree and
       | yet so smart.
        
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