Most abundant class of animals

[larock01]

I am wondering what class of animals exists in the greatest number on earth?

I am thinking maybe Insecta, given the fact that they exist in more than 925,000 species on earth.

[LaurierU]

I dont know exactly but it sounds right from everything Ive learned growing up

[kiekyon]

i think u r right

[angel]

Yes, class insecta from phylum arthropoda consists of maximum number of organisms on earth

[Poison]

Yep, Arthropoda, Insecta.

[Darby]

Nematodes. Every insect species probably has at least one host-specific nematode parasite...plus virtually every organism (plant and animal) above a fairly teeny size has their own. Humans have over a hundred human-specific roundworms.

And there are free-living roundworms in all the soil and aquatic sediments.

Insects have the most named species, but that's because lots of hobbyists have collected and officially named them.

[kiekyon]

i make some research and find out the answer would lie on what you mean by the most abundant?

If you meant to say the most number of species, the answer is the Insecta. as you guessed, with about a million described species, no other class comes even close to the insects. The two distant runner-up classes are the Gastropoda, or the snails, and the Crustacea, the crabs and their relatives. They each have about 40 to 50 thousand species. The mammals, on the other hand, have fewer species than do sponges, reptiles, nematodes, fishes and many other more or less familiar groups of animals.

If you meant the class with the most number of individuals, the insects might still win, although I am not sure. In general, size and population are inversely related. For example, the class Nematoda (as suggested by Darby) do not have as many species as do insects, but most nematodes are smaller than an average insect. They are also quite populous; a single large mammal, say, a deer, may have thousands of parasitic nematodes living in its intestines.

[Darby]

There's an old, I don't know, saying I guess...

If you could make everything on the planet disappear except the nematodes, there would remain an image, in roundworms, of everything that had been there in the biosphere.

There are two species of crustaceans - copepods, I'm pretty sure - that are "officially" supposed to be the most populous species. You can dip a plankton net into virtually every ocean and sea and catch a bunch of either.

[Code of Life]

Thats what I was taught when I was in College..................so yeah I think its Class Insecta represents the most abundant organisms on Earth