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As we've been informed many times, "Don't worry, there are plenty of fish in the sea." Likewise, we've noted oodles of ants in the collective pants. But just how many? About Big Numbers illustrates mind-bogglingly large numbers with real-world examples -- just one place we found the estimate of a quadrillion ants worldwide (give or take a few trillion). A quadrillion is a 1 plus 15 zeros: more than the total amount of cells in an average human, the distance in miles to the nearest star, or potential jokes about Dick Cheney. A number so large, ant population estimates say they comprise up to 15% of all animal biomass. As to fish, well, we did find there are upwards of 25,000 known species, with hundreds more discovered yearly. But try as we might, we couldn't find any marine-life census with even a guesstimate of total population. Our friend at About Big Numbers puts it nicely: "Some things are very difficult to calculate or even to estimate with any degree of precision...The number of fish on this planet seems to be this sort of thing...The most precise expression
of number I have found regarding the totality of fish is...'many trillions and trillions...' " Keep in mind, too, the number of fish in the ocean are actually decreasing from overfishing, while the ant population contracts only with our limited ability to squeeze off a burst of Raid. So our less-than-official answer: The quadrillion ants kick the trillions-of-fish's tail. Though not at the box office.
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