A press release issued on 12 March 2015 by the World Register of Marine Species in Ostend, Belgium, made the following announcement:
The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) confirms that currently 228,450 marine animal and plant species are known ... every day new species are discovered and described. In 2014 alone, some 1,451 new-to-science marine creatures were added to WoRMS — an average of four per day. WoRMS editors have contracted to 228,450 [after accounting for synonyms] the number of species currently known to science. About 195,000 (86%) of them are animals, including just over 18,000 species of fish described since the mid-1700s, more than 1,800 sea stars, 816 squids, 93 whales and dolphins and 8,900 clams and other bivalves. The rest are species of kelp, seaweeds and other plants, bacteria, viruses, fungi and single cell organisms. Based at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in Belgium, WoRMS is a collaborative scientific triumph. It is used worldwide as the authoritative taxonomic reference list of all marine species.
To coincide with the above, NIWA prepared a local press release giving some related statistics based on the work of NIWA marine taxonomists and extramural collaborators. It was written by one of the handful of New Zealand WoRMS editors (the author of this article), who was invited to contribute an account for New Zealand Science Review.