In an interesting piece on all the new weird critters they’re discovering at the bottom of the ocean, there’s this unexpected tidbit:

Ausubel said there are nearly 16,000 known species of marine fish and 70,000 kinds of marine mammals. A couple of thousand have been discovered during the census.

I would never have guessed that there are more than four times as many marine mammals as there are marine fish.

Update: Several readers have insist that this must be a typo or some other mistake. Perhaps they meant “marine animals” which would include myriad beasties like crabs and Spongebob. I think they must be right.

Update II: Yup, there are about 3,000 marine mammals.

Oh, and you folks giving me grief for not researching this before hand, lighten up. I caught this in an AP story at 6:30 in the morning for Pete’s sake. Take it up with the AP!