There are nine major groups of invertebrate animals that still exist right now, but if you counted the number of invertebrate animals that are known, there would be more than a thousand. There will probably be more invertebrates that will still be discovered in the years to come. There are different animal types that are mating with each other, and they may form new species in the future.
Just in case you are not familiar with invertebrates, these are animals that do not have their very own vertebral column. A lot of animals can be considered as invertebrates aside from those that are part of the family Vertebrata, which composes of vertebrates or animals with a backbone.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that 1,305,075 extant invertebrate species have been described. The IUCN also estimates that 66,178 extant vertebrate species have been described. This means that over 95% of described extant animal species in the world are invertebrates, and less than 5% are vertebrates.
So far, the largest group of described invertebrate species is insects. Insects have an estimated number of 1,000,000 described extant species. This is followed by the Arachnid group, with an estimated number of 102,248 described extant species. The smallest of the invertebrate group is Horseshoe crabs. There are only four described species of Horseshoe crabs in the world.
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