They’re amazing multicellular animals that complicate the issue of individuality. Check out this creaturecast!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
They’re amazing multicellular animals that complicate the issue of individuality. Check out this creaturecast!
I’ve seen whole junior high classes that complicate the issue of individuality.
I enjoy these CreatureCasts, but they really need to work on the sound. Sophia Tintori has a tendency to lower her voice to the point of inaudibility at the end of sentences.
Evolution continues to re-do what it’s done countless times before–reinventing colony specialization over and over again.
It’s less like conjoined twins, and more like cells dividing yet remaining attached and specializing–like we develop. Only the unit that specializes is not the cell, it’s a multicellular animal already.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
No way are those things shown in the illustrations real. Right? Please?
I’m using Firefox on an old EeePC so the vimeo video doesn’t work worth a crap. The Wikipedia article is pretty cool.
Also, in case anyone missed it, FSM.
Cool video, but the audio needs a higher quality compression setting, and the narrator sounds as if she is too far from the mike.
I would have to guess that you’ve never come up from a dive to find one of these wrapped around scuba tank… They are rather pretty to look at though ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man_o%27_War
Humans have co-evolved with many forms of bacteria (isn’t most of our body made up of genetic material that’s not our own?) So, don’t all animals already complicate the issue of individuality?
Brian the Siphonophore Messiah: Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t need to follow me, you don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re all individuals!
Siphonophore Crowd (in unison): Yes! We’re all individuals!
Brian: You’re all different!
Crowd (in unison): Yes, we are all different!
Siphonophore in Crowd: I’m not.
Another Siphonophore: Shhh!
— And while that’s going on, here is the news for siphonophores
These are so neat! I’m also curious if the illustrations are real, there is some serious science fiction fodder here.
kewl
Thos eillusteations are by Ernst Haeckel! HOAXES!!! All of them HOAXES!!!!!
Does that make you a siphonophile?
I was under the impression that multicellular life was just a way for mitochondria, with a seemingly boundless sense of theater, to make more of themselves.
The images are gorgeous but their theorizing isn’t all that compelling. They don’t really give a case (or even an explanation) for the members simply being cells. How are they different? Is there a genetic difference? If you cut one off would it be able to live alone? I’m sure there are many reasons why we don’t simply consider them to be cells but we sure don’t hear a word of them.
zoobiewa,
IOW, you want information to be spoon-fed to you; independent research into existing literature is sooooo hard… it’s not like you could just do a term search on some vast, world-wide database, right? ;)
It looks like something the Miskatonic Antarctic Expedition of 1931 dug out of the ice.
Call in the philosophers.
We have never been ourselves, oh no!
The self and id are dreams, you know.
Feeling unique is merely for show.
And the mind is committee
Whups, there we go!
We’re made up of many,
As countries and such.
A sense of uniqueness
Is just a nice touch
We bestow on ourselves,
Since we like it so much.
To our inward providers
We give not a thought
But without their labors
We all would be naught.