The UK species list, drawn as charts
The charts below break the UK species list down group by group, from mammals and birds to the fungi and insects that make up most of it.
What the UK species list holds
Each bar counts species names on the Natural History Museum's UK Species Inventory. These are not counts of animals or plants in the wild, and they do not show change over time: each chart says what it counted.
Counted from the Natural History Museum's UK Species Inventory, the release of August this year, loaded on 2 October. Every bar is a count of species names on that list, not of animals or plants in the wild.
Counted from the Natural History Museum's UK Species Inventory, the release of August this year, loaded on 2 October. Every bar is a count of species names on that list, not of animals or plants in the wild.
Counted from the Natural History Museum's UK Species Inventory, the release of August this year, loaded on 2 October. Every bar is a count of species names on that list, not of animals or plants in the wild.
Counted from the Natural History Museum's UK Species Inventory, the release of August this year, loaded on 2 October. Every bar is a count of species names on that list, not of animals or plants in the wild.
Counted from the Natural History Museum's UK Species Inventory, the release of August this year, loaded on 2 October. Every bar is a count of species names on that list, not of animals or plants in the wild.
What these numbers mean
A list of names, not a count of animals
Each chart here is built from the UK species list kept by the Natural History Museum, the list that recorders use as the standard reference for what has been named in this country. A name on the list means a species has been formally described and recorded here at some point. It does not tell you how many of that animal, plant or fungus are alive now, and it says nothing about whether a species is thriving or in trouble. For that, you need a trend.
Why the small things dominate the chart
Most of the names on the list belong to fungi, insects and other small life that rarely gets a second glance on a walk. Birds, mammals and the other groups most people think of as "wildlife" make up a small slice of the whole. The list looks the way it does because that is genuinely how UK life is divided up.
What counts as native here
The list flags the species that were brought to the UK by people, deliberately or otherwise. Every other name on the list is treated as native for this purpose. That is a working definition, and it is worth keeping in mind when you read the native and non-native bars side by side.
Where to go next
- Look up any one of these species, by name or by group, on the Species Finder.
- See how UK wildlife as a whole is faring against the trends and targets that are actually measured, on How Is It Going.