• Question: how many types of bacteria are there?

    Asked by Legendary Marcin to Claire, Ryan, Mako on 25 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Ryan Cheale

      Ryan Cheale answered on 25 Jun 2015:

      I looked around for this and claire might know more than I, but it seems there are around 100,000 types of bacteria (new scientist) but there are trillions of them everywhere!

    • Photo: Claire Bryer

      Claire Bryer answered on 25 Jun 2015:

      It’s hard to know as scientists have to guess because many bacteria are undiscovered (for example, the bacteria that are hard to culture in lab conditions, because they normally live deep under the Sea or in volcanic vents!)
      They currently think there is somewhere in the region of 10,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 different species of bacteria!

Comments