Oceanography
About how many creatures are in the Pacific Ocean? Thank you, Shelby.
Hello Shelby, We found some additional information for you. Wow! What an interesting question! Generally when one thinks of ocean life, one has a tendency to think only of fish. However, the ocean(s) are teeming with many different types of marine and plant life. I began this search using the search engine Google. I entered "Pacific Ocean statistics" and found a site called Ocean 98: Ocean Facts and Statistics. This site does not directly answer your question. However, it does state that "The number of ocean species known to man are 275,000." And that "We actually know relatively little about the oceans." The URL is: http://www.ocean98.org/fact.htm The article talks about Coastal Issues, Fisheries, Geography, Life in the Oceans, Polar Regions, Ocean Waters, etc. The section about Life in the Oceans, discusses the various types of creatures in the Pacific Ocean, reproduction rate(s), etc. Yours has proven to be a challenging question, in that there is no definite numerical answer. I tried searching various databases, but did not come up with any useful information. Once again, I tried Google. This time I simply entered "How many fish are in the Pacific Ocean." I found an article entitled: How Many Fish in the Sea? 15,304 Species and Counting. From the Census of Marine Life. "The Census of Marine Life is a growing global network of researchers in more than 45 nations engaged in ten-year initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of marine life in the oceans past, present, and future." The full report for this article is available online at: http://www.coml.org/ The Census of Marine Life contains information about the "History of Marine Animal Populations," the "Future of Marine Animal Populations," "Census Populations" etc. Useful information for accessing the probability of the number of creatures in the ocean. Another site that can provide general information about the Pacific Ocean is the CIA World Fact Book. Once again, to get to this page, I entered in Google, "CIA World Factbook Pacific Ocean." The URL is: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/zn.html This site provides background information, geography, climate, etc. Some of the information mentioned has bearing upon marine populations. There is also a great map! It would appear that it is not possible to get the precise number of creatures in the sea. The best one can do is get an estimate. Your local library and librarian may be able to provide you with additional information, or sources of information. Also, perhaps, you may also wish to try entering various search terms, such as, ocean, pacific, fish, marine life, statistics, etc., in your search engine of choice. Depending upon the exact nature of your project you may choose very different terms than the examples I have given here. I hope the information provided here will prove to be useful. If you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us. Virtual Reference Desk There are billions and billions of creatures or organisms in the Pacific Ocean. These creatures range from small multicellular lifeforms such as plankton and radiolarians which number in the trillions, to small fish and medium size fish which may school into groups of several hundred thousands, to large mammals such as dolphins and whales which number in the hundreds of thousands to a few thousands as is the case for many species of whales. The majority of these lifeforms are present in the upper layers of the ocean and in coastal regions. The deep abyss of the Pacific ocean is generally habited by few lifeforms due to lack of nutrients and sunlight.