animals, humans & insects

[paulz]

It's not those beginning with N so don't panic. Daughter has asked [as 10 year old's do] are there more animals than humans on the planet? I'm pretty sure if it was Animals+Insects they'd outnumber us, c'mon QM I'm sure you know

[incitatus]

insects alone would have us outnumbered several times over. in fact insects in brazil would probably outnumber the whole human race from the dawn of time.

[paulz]

incitatus - Thanks for the prompt answer, [as I thought] what about just animals vs humans?

[incitatus]

probably still got us beat- think of the numbers of rats in london etc.

[bernardo]

I once read that as a rule-of-thumb, the total weight of animals in each species should be about the same - so e.g. there are many more people than elephants, about the same number of pigs as humans, and millions of times more insects than humans.

[incitatus]

I think that the cows, sheep and termites might have been cheating

[Quizmonster]

Paul, your question's wording seems to indicate that we should exclude insects from consideration. Thereafter, what we need to establish is what exactly you mean by 'animals'. Do we exclude fish and birds, too? (I'd guess there are vastly greater numbers of finches alone, say, than humans!)

There are currently some 6 billion humans alive, which might seem like a lot, but the OED defines an animal as "a being of which the typical forms are endowed with life, sensation and voluntary motion". On that basis, us lot hardly register on Nature's calculator. Cheers

[Cetti]

Looking at this link a few minutes ago the number of people on the planet were 6,400,152,799,00 - there is also a running counter in real time that shows how many are added in every second!

http://www.scorpiosite69.freeserve.co.uk/worldpop.
htm

There is roughly a total of 30 million insect species alone - so bugs are the clear winners. More info on numbers here: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jun10/snt
4.asp

[Cetti]

Sorry, last link rubbish - try this one:

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jun10/snt
4.asp