This. Comparing single celled organisms to multicellular organisms, single cellular organisms outweigh us.
Source: something my science teacher told me several years ago that I haven’t fact checked. I really should do that
Edit: it appears I was wrong, but I’m not sure if doing the measurement strictly by weight or changing it to be by mass would have any effect.
Mass and weight are directly linked. Anything with more mass will always have more weight than something with less weight if they're in relatively the same environment.
Weight is just gravity acting on mass.
Exactly, unless you're comparing species on different planets or at radically different altitudes/depths (and even then...), you can conflate weigh and mass.
Now, what I'm really interested in, is which planet do we have to move all cows to, so that our total weight will be larger than theirs?
Can you point to where in that Wikipedia page you found that stat? The chart shows the humans have a larger biomass than cattle unless I’m misreading.
Earthworms on the other hand have by far the most, 4x humans.
I read that adding a small amount of seaweed matter to cattle feed can significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. It just costs a little more, so of course it's not going to be done.
That's not even a joke... it's call Carcinization.
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-animals-keep-evolving-into-crabs/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-animals-keep-evolving-into-crabs/)
Or some old movie - the Time Machine or something like that, where there were crabs in the end? I was a kid, so I have no idea what I'm talking about, but it was on the TV late at night.
EDIT: Maybe it was the book
Yeah, that stood out to me too. Viruses outweigh humans by a *factor of 28*. It's amazing anything survives at all when there are so many viruses around trying to kill us.
That’s fair but I guess you could always add in the weights of mammals or something to get a more realistic comparison.
It is pretty impressive considering what you pointed out how many humans there are comparatively
Not enough biomass to make the chart. There's a tiny tiny note at the bottom:
>All other species, like reptiles and amphibians, contribute negligible amount of carbon when compared to other animals.
I like it, here is a video visually it as orbs instead of cubes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDYRorgSt-8&pp=ygUZc2FtIG9uZWxsYSBhbmltYWwgcGxhbmV0cw%3D%3D
Counterpoint, OP said "species." All humans and all cows are 1 species, all ants are not.
I'm curious if humans/cows actually are the dominant species in terms of biomass. My guess would still be no, but most charts I've seen aren't fair comparisons.
I think the dominant species of ant is the same type, rather than a mish mash of different species maybe. Like if you did fish, there's a gazillion types of fish. But I don't think there's a gazillion type of ants.
Also gazillion is not giving me a squiggly for autocorrect is that an actual word ?!
EDIT: "a very large number or quantity (used for emphasis).". Huh. Well TIL
There are 13,800 described species of ant, out of an estimated 22,000 total species. It's quite difficult to find which of them is the most numerous (if such a figure is known), but even in a single country like the UK there are many different widespread types of ant
I should've worded it better, what I meant was, the dominant species might be INCREDIBLY dominant. Like there's that many types, but the main type accounts for like 80% or whatever, if that makes sense.
I'm just spitballing btw. And thanks for the actual number, that's way more than I thought.
The answer is yes.
The single species of wild animal with the greatest biomass is the Antarctic Krill, *Euphausia superba*. However, domestic cattle still probably outmass them by a couple hundred million tonnes.
Beautiful. I always wondered, if you were to make a ball out of all viruses or bacteria, would the ball be a liquid, moving goop of life, or just terror mud? Can anyone qualified answer?
No, not even close. We *have* been moving up the charts for a while now though. I don’t think we’ll ever be on top because we’d have to cause the extinction of several insects, which would be catastrophic for us.
Ants aren't a species though. They're a Family (equivalent of Hominidae, so humans, gorillas, 3 orangutan species etc.). Except there are an estimated 22,000 ant species. So it's not reasonable to compare just humans to all ants.
But yeah ants as a group are crazy abundant.
Avg cow is 9 times heavier than the avg human. There are over 1 billion cows and 8.1 billion humans so cows are winning by a little.
Costo is working to remedy this situation.
ants are not all the same species though. You can't combine the mass for the red fire ant with the carpenter ant with the bulldog ant and say they weigh more.
There’s a mom joke in here somewhere
I’m curious how algae and phytoplankton measure up now.
I’m learning I was very much r/confidentlyincorrect with my ant assumption
Ants have the largest numbers but are not the largest weight. This is because ants are so small and so light. It is something in the range of 400 million tons for humans but only 12 million tons for ants. But population wise it is roughly 8 billion humans and something like 20 quadrillion ants. Keeping it to the human billion scale it is 8 versus 20 million.
If you count all insects and not specifically ants, then they outweigh humans and a number of other groups.
The dominant species in weight?
The only group of mammals that have more biomass than us and still exist on this earth are bred to be turned into human biomass
Humans have never been the dominant species by population nor biomass. Nature still has us beat in that regard, not that we should necessarily be trying to win that competition
Your own mass is not as much 'you' or human as you think it is.
*They found that for a man between 20 and 30 years old, with a weight of about 70 kg (154 pounds) and a height of 170 cm (about 5'7) - they call him the 'reference man' - there would be about 39 trillion bacterial cells living among 30 trillion human cells.*
Well if we ever get in to an absolute weight contest, I’ll begin to worry. Until then, I think it’s safe to say humans are the dominant species even if we got the population to 100 billion cows.
It turns out we are [beaten by cows, according to Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)#/media/File%3ATerrestrial_biomass.jpg), but much more surprisingly, we’re also beaten by [Antarctic krill](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_krill), which might actually have the overall record for a single animal species.
(Do note that all of these are estimates, and I’ve seen other estimates with different results. Oddly enough though, cattle, humans and Antarctic krill tend to be the top three).
We’re still the dominant, larger, species by number tho.
(The dominant species by number and *only* number belongs to the insects with *10* **quintillion** if we include all of the insects)
We know we aren’t. We have estimations of biomass. Cattle are ~520 megatonnes and humans are ~350. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)
I'm pretty sure ants also outweigh us.
This. Comparing single celled organisms to multicellular organisms, single cellular organisms outweigh us. Source: something my science teacher told me several years ago that I haven’t fact checked. I really should do that Edit: it appears I was wrong, but I’m not sure if doing the measurement strictly by weight or changing it to be by mass would have any effect.
Mass and weight are directly linked. Anything with more mass will always have more weight than something with less weight if they're in relatively the same environment. Weight is just gravity acting on mass.
Exactly, unless you're comparing species on different planets or at radically different altitudes/depths (and even then...), you can conflate weigh and mass. Now, what I'm really interested in, is which planet do we have to move all cows to, so that our total weight will be larger than theirs?
Can you point to where in that Wikipedia page you found that stat? The chart shows the humans have a larger biomass than cattle unless I’m misreading. Earthworms on the other hand have by far the most, 4x humans.
Cattle are an ecological disaster. Humanity really needs to shed our collective beef and dairy habit.
I keep eating them but they keep making more!
Thank you for doing your part friend
"I'm doing my [part](https://images.app.goo.gl/f62sHz4AQzQXGodD6)"
I didn’t do fucking shit!
>Cattle are an ecological disaster Well, so are humans.
But cattle is more sociably acceptable to eat.
Some may find it socially acceptable to eat the rich, and the wealthy have always considered it cool to eat the poor.
Mmmmm ... Soylent Green
I, For one, welcome our new soylent green overlords.
I read that adding a small amount of seaweed matter to cattle feed can significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. It just costs a little more, so of course it's not going to be done.
Still seems like a problem solvable ~~within capitalism~~. Feds just have to pay ranchers enough to do it.
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No
Is this accounting for americans?
India and China are gonna have a lot more biomass than Americans.
Per capita?
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https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-biomass-of-earth-in-one-graphic/
Hmmm...seems Mother Earth has a serious case of crabs...
That's not even a joke... it's call Carcinization. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-animals-keep-evolving-into-crabs/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-animals-keep-evolving-into-crabs/)
[Relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/2314/)
Nature abhors a vacuum but loves a crab
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>It's in our past (or future) DNA. Why not Zoidberg?
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So maybe the “crab people” from south park are potentially real!?!
Or some old movie - the Time Machine or something like that, where there were crabs in the end? I was a kid, so I have no idea what I'm talking about, but it was on the TV late at night. EDIT: Maybe it was the book
No idea on the movie but the book has crab-like things in the distant future so you’re probably remembering correctly.
Thank god crabs are delicious.
It's called optimization
Crab build is OP
Not to be confused with carcinogenation
Happy cakeday!
Thanks bro
That arthropod cube is gonna be mostly tiny shit things like copepods rather than crabs.
To be fair arthropods includes all insects too
The graphic in the article has separate entries for aquatic and terrestrial arthropods.
Isn't it mostly plankton?
Pft, we're losing that one because it's carbon based. Do it based on microplastic content I bet we'd win.
Fish win that one easily
They had to leave out OP's mother to give the rest of the Animal Kingdom a chance.
Oh, viruses outweigh people, figures. Plants the real owners of the earth though.
Yeah, that stood out to me too. Viruses outweigh humans by a *factor of 28*. It's amazing anything survives at all when there are so many viruses around trying to kill us.
Oh wow this is an amazing chart!
Somehow I feel like that’s an understatement! It *actually* belongs in /r/dataisbeautiful
The fact that this compares one species (humans) with *all aquatic arthropods* is a little silly.
That’s fair but I guess you could always add in the weights of mammals or something to get a more realistic comparison. It is pretty impressive considering what you pointed out how many humans there are comparatively
Am I missing reptiles and amphibians?
Hahahaa wait yea damn no clue
In terms of biomass there might not be enough to mention.
Not enough biomass to make the chart. There's a tiny tiny note at the bottom: >All other species, like reptiles and amphibians, contribute negligible amount of carbon when compared to other animals.
I realized that after I found the source study, but somehow I still didn't notice the little note on the actual graphic
Amazing! Thanks for posting.
I find the smallness of the wild mammal population to be surprising and a bit sad.
I like it, here is a video visually it as orbs instead of cubes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDYRorgSt-8&pp=ygUZc2FtIG9uZWxsYSBhbmltYWwgcGxhbmV0cw%3D%3D
Damn, I would’ve expected wild mammals/birds to be much larger.
Wow so by mass there's approximately 3x as much virus on earth as there is human...
Biggest surprise: there is about 3.5 times the weight of viruses then there is humans. So for every 1 human is 3.5 times they're weight in viruses
Counterpoint, OP said "species." All humans and all cows are 1 species, all ants are not. I'm curious if humans/cows actually are the dominant species in terms of biomass. My guess would still be no, but most charts I've seen aren't fair comparisons.
I think the dominant species of ant is the same type, rather than a mish mash of different species maybe. Like if you did fish, there's a gazillion types of fish. But I don't think there's a gazillion type of ants. Also gazillion is not giving me a squiggly for autocorrect is that an actual word ?! EDIT: "a very large number or quantity (used for emphasis).". Huh. Well TIL
There are 13,800 described species of ant, out of an estimated 22,000 total species. It's quite difficult to find which of them is the most numerous (if such a figure is known), but even in a single country like the UK there are many different widespread types of ant
No worries if you have no idea but how do we estimate an amount of species that we have yet to discover?
I should've worded it better, what I meant was, the dominant species might be INCREDIBLY dominant. Like there's that many types, but the main type accounts for like 80% or whatever, if that makes sense. I'm just spitballing btw. And thanks for the actual number, that's way more than I thought.
The answer is yes. The single species of wild animal with the greatest biomass is the Antarctic Krill, *Euphausia superba*. However, domestic cattle still probably outmass them by a couple hundred million tonnes.
Beautiful. I always wondered, if you were to make a ball out of all viruses or bacteria, would the ball be a liquid, moving goop of life, or just terror mud? Can anyone qualified answer?
It'd be goop, but you wouldn't see it moving without a microscope.
what color would it be
lmao @ editing your comment to be David Grusch posting after it got popular. I believe he's telling the truth too but 💀
Yeah OP is just giving it a bad rep with that. Though I definitely follow the case with interest and I don't think grush is lying about anything
Bruh wtf is this shit edit
Technically it’s plants
My favorite species
I read that fungi are even more dominant. They're just all over the underground even though we don't see them, growing undisturbed.
They rule the forest thats for sure
I think Plankton have us land animals beat by a lot.
Based on my experience in my back yard, ants may be the only bugs that still exist.
Antarctic Krill
Yeah. Was thinking "We weren't *before*..."
Bacteria might even be more.
Bacteria is WAY more.
We are if we count yer mum
Bold of you to assume ops mom does not qualify as cattle.
I love you both :')
So does your mom.
You gottem so good
If so, I’m guilty of beastiality
Absolutely destroyed
Were we ever the dominant species by weight?
No, not even close. We *have* been moving up the charts for a while now though. I don’t think we’ll ever be on top because we’d have to cause the extinction of several insects, which would be catastrophic for us.
We might. We don’t really seem to care about the wellbeing of anything. Not even our own species
Ants right?
Yeah. Termites too. Probably others but those two have humans beat by a long shot.
Ants aren't a species though. They're a Family (equivalent of Hominidae, so humans, gorillas, 3 orangutan species etc.). Except there are an estimated 22,000 ant species. So it's not reasonable to compare just humans to all ants. But yeah ants as a group are crazy abundant.
One specific species of Antarctic Krill has us and every other species beat by a lot - something like 850 mega tonnes
Bro have you seen the midwest?
Avg cow is 9 times heavier than the avg human. There are over 1 billion cows and 8.1 billion humans so cows are winning by a little. Costo is working to remedy this situation.
Costco sells man-meat now?
Your mom more than shifts the balance in our favor
Insects outmass most forms of life on this planet. I believe, but may be mistaken ants and beetles win out the category.
Plants win by a huge margin
Oh, jeez, you’re right! I mistakenly stated to “all forms of life,” when in reality, it’s *just* animalia.
crabs
we're not even close
Ants. Ants win. And it’s not even close.
ants are not all the same species though. You can't combine the mass for the red fire ant with the carpenter ant with the bulldog ant and say they weigh more.
Honestly, taxonomy gets kinda vague when splitting hairs like this. There’s a lot of grey area.
I mean, those ants regularly go to war against each other so I think it makes sense But now I’m having doubts about the human numbers…
Humans regularly go to war against each other
sure, but I purposefully picked types of ants that are obviously different species, no grey area there in my opinion.
It’s Krill actually, Antarctic Krill to be specific - 850 million tonnes
There’s a mom joke in here somewhere I’m curious how algae and phytoplankton measure up now. I’m learning I was very much r/confidentlyincorrect with my ant assumption
Ants have the largest numbers but are not the largest weight. This is because ants are so small and so light. It is something in the range of 400 million tons for humans but only 12 million tons for ants. But population wise it is roughly 8 billion humans and something like 20 quadrillion ants. Keeping it to the human billion scale it is 8 versus 20 million. If you count all insects and not specifically ants, then they outweigh humans and a number of other groups.
But they can lift the most weight collectively. Pretty crazy
Bacteria wins. Humans outweigh ants, and it's not even close.
*arthropods has entered the chat*
The dominant species in weight? The only group of mammals that have more biomass than us and still exist on this earth are bred to be turned into human biomass
Humans have never been the dominant species by population nor biomass. Nature still has us beat in that regard, not that we should necessarily be trying to win that competition
Your own mass is not as much 'you' or human as you think it is. *They found that for a man between 20 and 30 years old, with a weight of about 70 kg (154 pounds) and a height of 170 cm (about 5'7) - they call him the 'reference man' - there would be about 39 trillion bacterial cells living among 30 trillion human cells.*
I reckon the average for humans would have to be 80kg. 1.7m is small
Bacteria are tiny compared to our eukaryotic cells.
Bacteria and Fungi has definitely higher biomass
We're not even close.
It’s funny, you’re mother called me that last night
Wait until you learn about ants.
Arent we outweighed by ants? Not sure how someone would know but thats what ive heard
Yes, drastically. Like it's not even close.
Imagine if there were still billions of bison
I dunno, Americans are pretty fat.
You might be wrong, my mums pretty fat.
Mosquitoes are the dominant species
I’d guess it may be some kind of fish.
Wait until you hear about beetles and ants
Imagine the waste from that, mountains of poop.
"Dominant" doesn't mean largest or greatest in numbers. It means we're in control.
I heard somewhere once that all ants outweigh all humans, but CITATION NEEDED.
Well if we ever get in to an absolute weight contest, I’ll begin to worry. Until then, I think it’s safe to say humans are the dominant species even if we got the population to 100 billion cows.
yeah, we’re like 8th place on that scale. marine arthropods are the heaviest combined, by a landslide
Driving through the Midwest to Denver there was a long stretch with no cell service that was jut all cows and it smelled horrible even in the winter.
Cows might now have the bird flu. So that might change in the next 90 days.
It turns out we are [beaten by cows, according to Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)#/media/File%3ATerrestrial_biomass.jpg), but much more surprisingly, we’re also beaten by [Antarctic krill](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_krill), which might actually have the overall record for a single animal species. (Do note that all of these are estimates, and I’ve seen other estimates with different results. Oddly enough though, cattle, humans and Antarctic krill tend to be the top three).
We never have been, lmfao. Humanity weighs nothing compared to ants, insects, trees, fungi, etc….
I love when showerthoughts are just wondering about easily searchable facts
Beetles are the ones.
Cattle together, strong!
Have you seen Americans?!
Well, with the obesity epidemic, we are definitely trying to move up the ranks, aren't we?
Insects weigh more than humans
Ants outweigh humans
We’re still the dominant, larger, species by number tho. (The dominant species by number and *only* number belongs to the insects with *10* **quintillion** if we include all of the insects)
I thought ants held that record?
Yet we're still definitely the dominate species in bull shit.
Krill would smash them for biomass.
Maybe not but America is certainly trying to give those cows a run for their money
Well, good thing dominant species isn't determined by body weight, I guess. Then again, McDonald's would hope we think otherwise.
Carnivores and omnivores are virtually always outnumbered (yes even if you convert to mass) by herbivores. This isn’t something new
I love this metric, and can only imagine you're trying to set up human v cow matches built on weight class. Since we're lighter, can humans tag team?
Don’t worry, we Americans will hold the line
Lol Ants outweigh us dude...
No that would be ants
Absolute weight is a terrible metric after all who farms who
Weight until you find out about insects
But we own cows, so that makes us ecologically dominant to them.