How many land mammals are there in the world?

Together with ten other researchers, she has collected hundreds of species of mammals and built a mathematical model that can predict the number of individuals of a wild species, which can be difficult to calculate directly.

Pets affect the score

After that, all individuals of various mammals on Earth were converted into biomass, which means weight. A five-ton elephant, for example, corresponds to 250,000 house mice weighing 20 grams.

Calculations have shown that land mammals combined weigh 60 megatons, which is about 60 million tons. The number is associated with a certain margin of uncertainty and can be as high as 33 megatons or as high as 118 megatons.

This can be compared to the Earth’s eight billion people weighing 390 megatons and our pets weighing 630 megatons.

Plants are heavier

This brings the total weight of all mammals on Earth to 980 megatons.

However, they are small potatoes compared to the sum of the so-called biosphere, which includes everything living on Earth — including plants, fungi, bacteria, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and birds.

2018 advertiser Israeli scientists estimate the weight of the total biosphere at about 1.1 teratons or 1,100,000 megatons, of which plants make up the majority.

In other words, 1,100,000 megatons is more than 1,000 times the biomass found in all mammals combined.