Diploblasts are popping up everywhere this week. If you take a look at the phylogeny in this article, you'll see that one of the diagnostic features of the cnidarians is the presence of the cnidoblast, which contains a stinging nematocyst. This is the 'stinger' of the jellyfish…and now it's been caught on video. It's very cool—watch the movie!
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The Cambrian vendobiont S. psygmoglena, gen.sp.nov., composite photo of part and counterpart to show both upper and lower surfaces.
From the pre-Cambrian and early Cambrian, we have a collection of enigmatic fossils: the small shellies appear to be bits and pieces of partially shelled animals;…
Pity the small fish snagged by a sea anemone. Blundering into the waving tentacles, the fish is stung by hundreds of tiny harpoons shot out from stinging cells, each one loaded with potent venom. It is paralysed and moved towards the anemone's 'mouth', which lies in the centre of its tentacles and…
Carl Zimmer wrote on evolution in jellyfish, with the fascinating conclusion that they bear greater molecular complexity than was previously thought. He cited a recent challenging review by Seipel and Schmid that discusses the evolution of triploblasty in the metazoa—it made me rethink some of my…
Sometimes, I confess, this whole common descent thing gets in the way and is really annoying. What we've learned over the years is that the evolution of life on earth is constrained by historical factors at every turn; every animal bears this wonderfully powerful toolbox of common developmental…
That's amazing!
See, this is the sort of stuff that really amazes me about the natural world - that something like this could have evolved at all is just brilliant.
Maybe I'm in the wrong career - I'd love to be able to understand what every second word in that post meant.
Creating phylogenies is super fun. I'm a maximum likelihood type of girl, myself.
Thank you for the link to that article!