Insects are the most diverse group of animals on Earth. Scientists have described about one million species, but they believe this only accounts for a fraction of those that exist. Even counting the number of species in a single state presents a huge challenge, as a new study on California’s insect diversity clearly illustrates.

Prior to this research, surveys led by the University of California collectively described about 12% of California’s insect diversity, leading scientists to estimate that there are between 26,000 and 100,000 species in the Golden State. The results of a new survey, published today in the journal Ecography, show that the true number may be surprisingly close to the upper end of that range. The researchers documented 60,000 unique species across the state, and they believe that represents just two-thirds of California’s true insect biodiversity.

“I was surprised by how dramatic some of our findings are!” co-author Megan Barkdull, assistant curator of entomology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, told Gizmodo in an email. “We knew that California would have a very diverse insect fauna, since it’s a global biodiversity hotspot. However, I didn’t expect that every single ecoregion would be home to a starkly different insect fauna.”

The statewide survey was carried out by the California Insect Barcode Initiative (CIBI), which is developing a publicly available DNA barcode reference library for all California insects. When you scan the barcode on an item at the store, the checkout system searches a database for the matching barcode and returns information about the item, like the price.

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