Solve the problem.

Customer relations specialists need to respond to email messages in addition to taking calls. The department is thinking of creating a new position that will solely handle email. The supervisor records the number of email messages received for eight consecutive days: $9,2,23,16,26,49,40,36.$ Find the median number of email messages received.

Group of answer choices

$23$ email messages

$25\mathrm{.}5$ email messages

$24\mathrm{.}5$ email messages

$26$ email messages