More than 56,000 species of animals and plants have been scrubbed from the rollcall of marine life after it was realised that they had been counted twice — or more.
Almost a third of all the named species in the seas turn out on renewed inspection to have been “discovered” at least twice by naturalists.
One species, the breadcrumb sponge, Halichondria panicea (left), has been named 56 times since it was first described 242 years ago in 1766.
Other lifeforms identified several times include the spiny dogfish, Squalus acanthias, with 21 Latin names, a type of sea squirt, Cnemidocarpa verrucosa, with 19 names and the basking shark, Cetorhinus maximus, which was named 40 times.
Rest assured that the left will spin this and count these duplicates as extinctions due to global warming in the future and will most likely blame Bush for it as well!
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