Have you ever wondered how us humans compare in numbers to say fish, or maybe insects? If you have you are reading the right post. While exact numbers are impossible we can at least estimate in terms of amount per square mile. If you think us humans are the dominant ones, you need to think again…

The Top Ten Most Abundant Types of Animal on Earth

10 – Reptiles

Sadly for them, reptiles never really recovered from the unknown cataclysmic even that finished off the dinosaurs, well before us humans ever arrived on the scene. Now largely through conflict and competition with humans the worlds snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodiles and other scaly skinned beasts are once more declining in numbers and there is thought to be less than 2,000,000,000 reptiles left on Earth. Let us hope they are still around for many thousands of years to come, but I doubt it.

9 – Humans

With numbers beginning to slow down, even though at time of writing this post there were 7,616,674,065 humans on Earth, but we barely make it into the top 10! Let’s hope our population numbers never get above this place in the list.

8 – Mammals (excluding us humans)

Despite exploding human population numbers and heavy pressure on many rare mammal species in the wild, other mammals probably still outnumber us humans by at least 4 – 1.These numbers will, of course, be boosted by the huge numbers of herd animals, pets and even commensal or scavenging animals such as rats, mice and other animals who share the same habitat.

7 – Birds

Many birds share human habitats yet avoid conflict with humans, so they have the edge in the numbers over most other larger wildlife outside the oceans. There are probably about 100,000,000,000,000 birds in the world and the most common must include poultry species and the specialist ‘townies” like sparrows and pigeons.

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6 – Amphibians

Frogs, toads, newts, and the like make up a group of an estimated 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) creatures.

5 – Molluscs

This list includes snails, slugs, most shellfish, squids and octopus and many other tiny animals that make up the plankton horde.

4 – Fish

The total fish population of the world‘s oceans has been estimated at around 760,000,000 tonnes. This list is then made up of over 100,000,000,000,000 individual species!

3 – Worms

Earthworms and other tube-like animals, including parasitic worms, occur in great numbers in some habitats: It is thought there are more than 1,000,000 earthworms in every 0.9 hectares of British farmland. But their distribution is variable compared with the teeming arthropods higher up this list.

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2 – Crustaceans

Besides crabs, woodlice and so on, this class also includes Krill and other tiny, shrimp-ike creatures that form a major ingredient of plankton which is the mainstay of all life in the oceans. They also include these ten amazing crabs that are well worth a look.

1 – Insects and spiders

Of all the animals that can readily be seen without a microscope, insects are unquestionably top of the numbers league: there are at least 1,000,000 insects to each and every human on earth. (and probably still will be no matter how much human numbers grow.) Among the most common insects are ants, fleas, flies, and the little-known springtails which inhabit moist topsoil the world over. Even these insects probably outnumber us humans.