According to the Smithsonian Institution, roughly how many individual insects are alive on Earth at any one time?
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Answer
About 10 quintillion insects
Around a million insect species have been named so far, more than all other described animal species put together.
How to estimate it
This is a loose estimate even for experts. Ice-free, non-desert land covers about 100 million square kilometres, or 10^14 square metres. Most insects are tiny and live in soil and leaf litter, where samples of fertile ground turn up tens of thousands per square metre. Take 50,000: 10^14 × 50,000 = 5 × 10^18. The Smithsonian's figure is about 10^19, or 10 quintillion insects.
Source: Smithsonian Institution
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