Species diversity describes the number of species in an area. At present we do not know how many species we share the earth with. Scientists have registered and given name to approximately 1.4 million species, but this is probably just a tiny fraction of all the existing species. There are probably somewhere between 5 and 80 million species on our planet.
The largest diversity we find in tropical areas. Tropical rain forests cover only 7 % of earths land area, but even then more than half of all known species dwell therein.
Compared with this, Norway has relatively few species. Approximately 33000 species are known within our borders, but even then we still lack a lot of knowledge about the species diversity. There is a belief that there are at least 7000 insect species still to be discovered.
Maybe the correct number of species in Norway is closer to 60000?
