--- title: "How many species are endangered? more than 45,000 assessed as " description: "more than 45,000 assessed as threatened How the figure is estimated, how confident it is, and what makes the scale graspable." url: https://atoneplace.net/how-many/endangered-species/ site: "At One Place" --- # How many species are endangered? **How many species are endangered?: more than 45,000 assessed as threatened** Fewer than 3% of the world's estimated 8.7 million species have been assessed at all, so the count of threatened species is a floor, not a total. The IUCN Red List has assessed over 160,000 species and classifies more than 45,000 of them as threatened — meaning Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered. That is roughly 28% of everything assessed. The important caveat is that assessment is not random: birds and mammals are almost completely covered, while insects, fungi and marine invertebrates are barely touched, so the 28% figure describes the assessed sample rather than life on Earth. Around 41% of amphibians and 37% of sharks and rays are threatened. ## How the figure is arrived at Each species is assessed against five quantitative criteria: rate of population decline, geographic range size, small population size, very small range, and quantitative extinction-risk modelling. Meeting any one threshold triggers the category. The criteria are deliberately mechanical so that two assessors working from the same data reach the same answer. ## How confident it is - **Low estimate:** 44,000 - **High estimate:** 48,000 - **Spread:** 1.1× between the bounds > The Red List is updated two or three times a year and the totals climb each time, mostly because more species get assessed rather than because more become threatened. Figures here reflect the 2024 assessments. ## Other living things and the natural world counts - [How many people are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/people-alive-right-now/) — about 8.2 billion - [How many grains of sand are there on Earth?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/grains-of-sand-on-earth/) — roughly 7.5 quintillion on the world's beaches - [How many ants are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/ants-on-earth/) — about 20 quadrillion - [How many trees are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/trees-on-earth/) — about 3 trillion - [How many insects are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/insects-on-earth/) — about 10 quintillion - [How many species are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/species-on-earth/) — about 8.7 million - [How many people have ever lived?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/people-who-have-ever-lived/) — about 117 billion - [How many drops of water are there in the ocean?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/drops-of-water-in-the-ocean/) — about 27 septillion - [How many fish are there in the sea?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/fish-in-the-sea/) — somewhere between 3 trillion and 100 trillion — nobody knows - [How many bees are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/bees-in-the-world/) — roughly 2 trillion managed honey bees - [How many birds are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/birds-in-the-world/) — about 50 billion wild birds - [How many bacteria are there on Earth?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/bacteria-on-earth/) — about 5 nonillion - [How many earthquakes are there each year?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/earthquakes-a-year/) — about 20,000 located a year — around 55 a day - [How many chickens are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/chickens-in-the-world/) — about 26 billion alive at any moment ## Common questions ### How many species are endangered? more than 45,000 assessed as threatened ### How is that estimated? Each species is assessed against five quantitative criteria: rate of population decline, geographic range size, small population size, very small range, and quantitative extinction-risk modelling. Meeting any one threshold triggers the category. The criteria are deliberately mechanical so that two assessors working from the same data reach the same answer. ## Related pages - [How many people are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/people-alive-right-now/) - [How many grains of sand are there on Earth?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/grains-of-sand-on-earth/) - [How many ants are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/ants-on-earth/) - [How many trees are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/trees-on-earth/) - [How many insects are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/insects-on-earth/) - [How many species are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/species-on-earth/) - [How many people have ever lived?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/people-who-have-ever-lived/) - [How many drops of water are there in the ocean?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/drops-of-water-in-the-ocean/) - [How many stars are there in the universe?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/stars-in-the-universe/) - [How many countries are there in the world?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/countries/) - [How many bones are in the human body?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/bones-in-the-human-body/) - [How many stars are there in the Milky Way?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/stars-in-the-milky-way/) - [How many atoms are there in the universe?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/atoms-in-the-universe/) - [How many galaxies are there?](https://atoneplace.net/how-many/galaxies-in-the-universe/) ## Sources - The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (https://www.iucnredlist.org/)