Re: How many species of cnidarians are found worldwide?

Hello Evette,

Thanks for an interesting question.  I rooted around a bit to find a 
specific number for you, and found only one site providing that type of 
information.  According to the SeaWorld animal information database, there 
are about 9,000 known living species of cnidaria.

For anyone reading this who might be curious about cnidaria, this is a 
large and varied group of marine invertebrates which includes the corals, 
sea anemones, hydras, jellies, and more.  

According to the University of California's Museum of Paleontology Web 
Lift, there are about 2,500 known species of corals!  My guess is that 
since we're still learning more and more about marine animals all the time, 
there are probably quite a few more cnidarian species awaiting discovery 
and classification.  I would love to work on that kind of research.  Maybe 
you can help-- keep asking good questions!

Here are the Web sites where I found the best information: 

http://www.seaworld.org/coral_reefs/sciclasscr.html

University of California Museum of Paleontology - Web Lift 


http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/help/taxaform.html
then click on Metazoa, then you'll see lots of info on Cnidaria.  For some 
reason, I couldn't save that link.  Maybe you'll have better luck.

Here's an example of one of the UCMP pages with photos: 

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cnidaria/cnidaria.html

best wishes, 
Ruth