'It is like a complicated engine where we only know about the major pieces. If we lose one or some of the small hidden pieces that play a critical role the engine might stop working,' said Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

'Many species may vanish before we even know of their existence, of their unique niche and function in ecosystems,' Mora told IPS.

Until now there wasn’t even a decent guesstimate about how many species exist currently: three million? 100 million? Now a new validated analytical technique has pined down the big number to 8.7 million species (give or take 1.3 million).

The analysis published Tuesday in the journal ‘PLoS Biology’ estimated there are 6.5 million species found on land and 2.2 million - about 25 percent of the total - dwelling in the ocean depths.

'Not knowing the answer to this fundamental question really highlights our ignorance about life on this planet,' said Boris Worm of Dalhousie University, co-author of the study along with Mora.

'We’re so fixated on the human enterprise we don’t recognise nature’s enterprise... the 8.7 million species that run the planet and provide the air we breathe, the water we drink and the soil we grow our crops in,' Worm told IPS. 'If the decline in species around us is not significant then I ask what is? This is all we have on this planet, the only planet that holds life.'

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