This sort of statement has always fascinated me: *”There are thought to be approximately 160,000* *species* *of moth,* ***many of which have yet to be described.****”*
How do we (well, “they”) ascertain what percentage of the total count are those we *haven’t* yet found?
(Note: I couldn’t find anything like this in posts containing “species” in the last year or so, so apologies if this has been answered further back).
In: 10
This is closely related to something called the [German Tank Problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem).
In WWII the Germans use sequential serial numbers, so some enterprising statisticians realized they could make an informed guess about the total number of tanks based on the numbers from the *observed* tanks.
Of course, part of your estimate has to include the number of observations (or tanks destroyed).
Species estimation is done in a similar way. For a given intensity of study, how many species did we find? If we find a ton in one survey, we can make an estimate that the biodiversity is exceptionally high and build an estimate around that.
For an interesting take on some of the math, see [here](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1607774113)
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