There are about 2 mio organisms described. However, how many describer, i.e. taxonomists are there? Reasonably exact figures exist only for single regions and taxa, apart from that some estimates are avavilable, but no global survey exists. One of the issues is: What is a Taxonomist? There are many specialists and experts who have an excellent knowledge about this or that group of organism, but who are never paid for their taxonomic expertise. Consequently they cannot invest their whole energy to this hobby. Amongst them are the colleagues at universities and museums employed not for their taxonomic expertise but something completely different (this applies to this author). This is also apply for the classical amateurs persuing non-academic carriers. Then there are the learned societies for systematic biology or a group of organism, such as the Royal Entomological Society or the Systematic Association. However, not all of their members are experts for some organism, some of them are interested in supporting systematics, others are members of several societies. The ETI in the Netherlands maintains the World Taxonomist Database with currently 4,100 entries. However, the entry is voluntarily and not all taxonomists have entered their name. This is the major reason for the discrepancies in the figures for the African taxonomists (see tables below). Consequently, the single numbers are certainly (at least probably) correct, but do not give the complete picture of how many taxonomists there really are. It is evident, however, that texonomic experts form a small and highly specialised professional group. What we also see from the figures on the web site is that the number of available taxonomists in a country does not match the present biodiversity: there are too many or too few taxonomists. This imbalance is addressed by some training programmes. The data also show that it is not wrong to call taxonomists a species at the brink of extinction. 18,000 specimen for one species of vertebrate is not so much and often reason for concern.