title: Response to comments on "Can we name Earth's species before they go extinct?".
abstract: Mora et al. disputed that most species will be discovered before they go extinct, but not our main recommendations to accelerate species' discoveries. We show that our conclusions would be unaltered by discoveries of more microscopic species and reinforce our estimates of species description and extinction rates, that taxonomic effort has never been greater, and that there are 2 to 8 million species on Earth.
authors.affiliation: Leigh Marine Laboratory, Institute of Marine Science, University of Auckland, Post Office Box 349, Warkworth, New Zealand. m.costello@auckland.ac.nz
authors.forename: Mark J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Costello
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: May
authors.forename: Nigel E
authors.initials: NE
authors.lastname: Stork
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D002965:Classification; D053476:Extinction, Biological; D009626:Terminology as Topic