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Species Diversity in Mexico

As was already mentioned in the introduction, Mexico belongs to the most biologically diverse countries in the world. Nevertheless the astounding richness of species described in the following table is still a great underestimation of the reality. Many areas of Mexico still remain to be studied in detail as well as many taxons of which our knowledge is very limited.
The data used in the table come from the Biodiversity Count in the year 1998.

Group Total No. of Species % of the world's diversity No. of Endemic species
Cactacea 900 45 715
Agaveacae 217 75 146
Mollusca (marine) 4.100 8 920
Arachnida 2.506 7 1759
Decapoda 1.410 14 98
Hymenoptera 2.625 8 194
Lepidoptera 2.610 8 200
Coleoptera 7.988 5 2.087
Amphibia 290 7 174
Reptilia 704 11 > 368
Aves 1054 11 111
Mammalia 491 12 142

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