Action Analysis for Animators

CHAPTER 4

Animals in Motion

The Richness of Life on Earth

The variety of life on earth is staggering in its enormity. There are an estimated 8,000 species of mammals, over 6,000 species of reptiles, 9,000 species of birds, and 25,000 species of fish, all either swimming, walking, flying, or crawling over our planet. The number of individual species of insects, which make up over 90% of all life forms on earth, is estimated at anywhere between 6 million and 10 million. That’s a lot of bugs. I say these are estimated figures because, though we live in an increasingly crowded world, much of it still remains almost completely unexplored. The ...