Insects among animals

In a 2026 study, researchers used more than 1.6 million insects collected in 15 Malaise traps across three ecosystems in Costa Rica’s Área de Conservación Guanacaste. DNA barcodes supported an estimate of about 333,000 species in the reserve; the team then scaled that number using global-to-local richness ratios for trees and several animal groups. The resulting 14.2–20.3 million range depends on the reference group and is an estimate, not a list of species already found.