At its press conference just now, EA announced that over 1.8 million creatures have been created by people using the Spore Creature Creator -- that's more than the number of known species in the world (1.5 million)! The Creature Creator has been available less than a month, meaning all of those creatures were created in just that amount of time. This is an especially staggering number considering the real game in which these creatures are used, Spore, isn't even available yet.

Spore creator Will Wright said that EA was hoping to get 100,000 creatures uploaded by players with the Creature Editor by September. They hit that number in 22 hours. Wright also showed off some of his favorite fan created creatures on screen.

EA also announced that National Geographic put together a documentary on evolution using Spore that will air the week the game ships. This documentary will be included in the Galactic Edition of the game.

To see some of the many possible creations with Spore, check out our recent roundup of gaming characters created with the Spore Creature Creator. It includes this beauty of Spore creator Will Wright himself: