A pink millipede

Saturday, June 21, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.

In the realm of top-10 lists, the items posted on Arizona State University’s ranking of the previous year’s top 10 new species have to be among the oddest.

The university’s International Institute for Species Exploration included a hot-pink dragon millipede among its top-10 listing of the bizarre, lethal or simply weird. The millipede’s Day-Glo fuchsia color sends an alert to would-be predators that it is toxic.

Although some might consider the list’s Michelin Man plant — so-named because it resembles the pudgy tire icon — amazing, we are astonished by the institute’s annual list of also-rans. According to that tally, called the State of Observed Species, 16,969 new species were identified in 2006, the most recent year for which complete data are available.

No, that’s not a typo: In one year, scientists discovered 16,969 species of plants, animals, insects and other creatures not previously identified. That averages out to 50 new species a day.

Even more astonishing is that this is merely a fraction of what’s out there. Carl Linnaeus, an 18th century scientist, developed the basic system of how plants and animals are named, related and classified. About 1.8 million species have been discovered and named since Linnaeus devised his system.

But experts estimate about 10 million species of plants, animals and various crawlies live on Earth.

“Most people do not realize just how incomplete our knowledge of Earth’s species is or the steady rate at which taxonomists are exploring that diversity,” said Quentin Wheeler, the institute’s director. He said people too often take for granted the “exuberance of species diversity” that exists all around them.

Keeping an inventory of these species, understanding their relationships and tracking their history is, Wheeler said, “in our own self-interest as we face the challenges of living on a rapidly changing planet.”

Indeed. We really ought to know our neighbors on the planet we share. But who knew we had so many?