What is the largest instance of precise counting in
nature?
We have (barring defects in the assembly line) precisely five
fingers and precisely thirty two teeth. The worm C. Elegans has precisely 959
cells. If you know of any organism that has a larger number of precisely
counted features, I would be grateful if you could drop me a note at ashishg-at-stanford.edu
Updates:
- Esteban Aracute and his fiancee pointed out the curious fact that in C. Elegans, there are more cells in the male (1031) than in the hermaphrodite.
- Robert Williamson pointed out that Tardigrades (also known as water-bears) are Eutelic , i.e., within each species, the number of cells in each organism is precisely the same. And, these are much larger than the C. Elegans worm (around 40,000 cells). In fact, his email is a treasure-trove of information on this matter, so I am archiving it here.