From remote rainforests to the depths of the oceans and even in your own backyard, life on Earth remains astonishingly diverse, and far from fully catalogued. Scientists are still describing thousands of new species every year, yet the process of identifying and naming life on our planet remains slow, complex and subject to many challenges that most people never see.
Even though modern technology and genetic tools have expanded our ability to detect life’s diversity, the rate of formal species discovery can feel sluggish compared with the immense number of organisms that remain unknown or undescribed.
TIL Creatives I meticulously document and analyze diverse life forms, from vibrant insects to deep-sea wonders, revealing Earth’s vast biodiversity.
To understand why, you need to look beyond headlines and into both the science of biodiversity and the practical hurdles scientists face.
Thousands of Discoveries Each Year, But More Hidden Below the Surface A new study led by researchers at the University of Arizona, published in Science Advances, examined taxonomic records for roughly 2 million known species across all major life forms. According to the paper’s senior author, John Wiens, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, scientists are now describing more than 16,000 new species a year on average, the highest rate of discoveries in history.
Between 2015 and 2020, researchers documented an average of more than 16,000 new species annually, including over 10,000 animals, around 2,500 plants and roughly 2,000 fungi. These discoveries span diverse groups, but arthropods and insects dominate the animal counts.
Wiens and his colleagues rejected the notion that species discovery is slowing. “Some scientists have suggested that the pace of new species descriptions has slowed down and that this indicates that we are running out of new species to discover,” Wiens said in a university statement. “Our results show the opposite. In fact, we’re finding new species at a faster rate than ever before.”
But even with these encouraging numbers, new discoveries don’t mean the job is easy or nearly done.
Why the Process Still Feels Slow Several factors explain why documenting biodiversity remains a slow and painstaking endeavour:
1. Taxonomy Takes Time and Expertise
A fundamental challenge in species discovery lies in taxonomy, the science of naming and classifying organisms. Even after a specimen is collected in the field, a taxonomist must determine whether it truly represents a species previously unknown to science. This involves careful comparison with museum collections, literature and increasingly, genetic analysis.
As a study published in Scientific Reports noted, the so-called “taxonomic impediment,” a combination of declining taxonomic expertise, limited funding, and slow publication processes, hampers how quickly new species are formally described and integrated into scientific literature. Until formal description and peer review are complete, a species cannot be officially re
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