PZ Myers. 2006 Jan 06. Zwei Tiere. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/zwei_tiere/>. Accessed 2006 Feb 13.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Friday, January 06, 2006

Zwei Tiere

A reader sent me this gorgeous picture of a diver attaching a sensor to a jellyfish in the Sea of Japan.

giant jellyfish

Just a thought…which of the two animals in the foreground is more complex, better adapted to its environment, more "highly evolved", more successful? If we had a time machine and could peek into the seas 10 million years ago or 10 million years from now, which kind (neither specific species would exist, probably, but which general or related form) of animal would you be more likely to find?

Posted by PZ Myers on 01/06 at 07:28 PM
Science • Organisms • 1 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. PZ, you need to define what a 'kind' is! ;)

    Still, three quarters of a billion years says I should bank on the 'jellyfish kind' being around for the next 10 million.
    #: Posted by Martin Brazeau  on  01/06  at  06:39 PM
  2. Holy crap, I didn't know they got that big. That's awesome.
    #: Posted by  on  01/06  at  06:46 PM
  3. Not just a beautiful rarity,
    it's possible that this is another symptom of
    overfishing,
    global warming, or
    ecosystem deterioration.

    http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=5254955
    http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20051220f4.htm
    #: Posted by  on  01/06  at  07:46 PM
  4. Good point ^_^
    It seems to me that the degree of evolution has nothing to do with adaptability.
    So the probability of finding a human on this planet in 100 million years time should be the lowest of all living creatures.
    #: Posted by  on  01/06  at  08:20 PM
  5. They are not "Jellyfish"--the correct term is "Jellies"
    #: Posted by Frederick J. Ide  on  01/06  at  09:01 PM
  6. Wow. What a spectacular animal. Is that what they call a "Lion's Mane?"
    #: Posted by cpbvk  on  01/06  at  09:06 PM
  7. No, the correct term in American, non-scientific, non-anal English is "jellyfish". Jellies are these things:

    #: Posted by  on  01/06  at  10:00 PM
  8. Damn! That thing is huge!
    #: Posted by Martin Wagner  on  01/06  at  10:05 PM
  9. Bah, I'm so tired of the apologists for lower life forms, trying to "put us in our place." Yes, the jelly fish was around 10 million years ago, and has gotten nowhere since then. Which one of us is more evolved? It still occupies the ocean. We are down in the ocean with it, and on land, and in the air, and in space. We have actually gotten somewhere in 10 million years. Our intelligence is invaluable. We are tagging it, and it doesn't even know that it's being tagged.
    #: Posted by  on  01/06  at  10:19 PM
  10. I'm not sure about the other questions, but aren't cnidaria considered very basal and hence less evolved than bilateria?
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  01/06  at  10:26 PM
  11. Oh, c'mon...what does "more evolved" mean? It means untested, as opposed to "tried and true." I poked around a bit, and found another article with a pic:
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-1910322,00.html
    #: Posted by cpbvk  on  01/06  at  10:36 PM
  12. This Jellyfish call japanese "echizen kurage". Kurage means jellyfish in English. Echizen is a Japanese sea site of the Honshuland. I knew what this jellyfish is from Japanese media.
    The follow is echizen kurage's images of images.google.com:
    http://images.google.com/images?q=%E3%82%A8%E3%83%81%E3%82%BC%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AF%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B2
    #: Posted by y.takenaka  on  01/06  at  11:01 PM
  13. I fail to see why "more evolved" should be considered synonymous with "untested." Suppose BOTH humans and jellyfish were found in similar forms (by some metric) 100 million years from now. Then both would be quite "tested." Which one would then be "more evolved"?

    One could perhaps define "more complex" in some systematic way. Is that the same as "more evolved"? No, I don't think so.

    In fact, I cannot identify any useful meaning for the phrase "more evolved."
    #: Posted by Ralph  on  01/06  at  11:46 PM
  14. Another thought:

    Perhaps someone would care to submit a "gorgeous picture of a jellyfish attaching a sensor to a diver in the Sea of Japan."

    That might add something to the "more evolved" debate.

    (My apologies to Jared Diamond, as the above is derived from the big question posed in "Guns, Germs and Steel.")
    #: Posted by Ralph  on  01/06  at  11:56 PM
  15. The jellyfish wasn't on the verge of destroying its own (and everyone else's) ecosystem a mere milion or two years into its existence, those stupid unevolved things.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  01:50 AM
  16. Okay, what I would like to know is how they attach the sensor.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  01:53 AM
  17. I guess I'm the only one to detect a frightening similarity between this holy cnidarian und unseres geliebtes Fliegendes Spaghetti Monstrum.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  02:00 AM
  18. Just a thought…which of the two animals in the foreground is more complex, better adapted to its environment, more "highly evolved", more successful?

    Interesting comparison. Don’t we have to define “complex, better adapted and highly evolved” before we can answer this? If by complex do we mean a highly differentiated cellular organism? Better adapted could mean very successful in surviving in it’s environment. Highly evolved could mean how derivative it is to it’s ancestral form. I could be biased, but I think Humans win on all fronts.

    I always wonder about living fossils like the jellyfish. It seems once and organism has reached a point of success, evolution slows down. I don’t mean mutations won’t occur at the same rate, but they get less selected. That has to be, doesn’t it? Aren’t there fossils of jellyfish 200 million years old? After all that time, all those mutations, wouldn’t there be something that would out-compete the jellyfish form and cause it to go extinct? I know this sounds like Mel Gibson’s “why are there monkeys still around” argument but it’s not. Everyone knows monkeys are still around because they live in a different niche.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  02:12 AM
  19. I'd say the animal on the left is more adaptable vs. adapted. The fact that its there in the sea at all shows its ability to adapt to multiple new environments, thus having a higher likelihood of surviving radical environmental changes through the ages.
    As for more evolved, aren't all creatures equal on that level? The general idea is that life appeared at one point in time and species radiated out from there. A sponge is a more highly evolved sponge than a dog is, but everythings been evolving for the same amount of time.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  02:18 AM
  20. Bad Jim: 'There is only one FSM and the jellyfish are his prophets...'
    #: Posted by Republic of Palau  on  01/07  at  04:10 AM
  21. Which of the two animals is more complex?

    According to W. Brian Arthur, complex systems are systems in process that constantly evolve and unfold over time. Ergo, man is complex, jellyfish less so.

    Which of the two animals is more successful?

    I dont know what is success in biology. Is it survival? If so, both animals are equally alive. Is it higher metabolism? Then humans are more active, we process more energy.

    I wonder how it tastes. I ate fried jellyfish in Tien Jin but the Japanese prepare these things differently. What is it called in Japanese?
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  04:11 AM
  22. more complex? - probably the human

    better adapted? - definitely the jellyfish

    more "highly evolved" - neither

    more successful? - too poorly defined

    more likely to find? - I'm plumping for jellyfish
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  05:14 AM
  23. There is just this small spark of mind to understand the whole sweep of time. Living forever is more scary than dying
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  05:48 AM
  24. But would CONSCIOUS INTELLIGENCE exist? The species/kind is harbouring it is irrelevant
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  05:51 AM
  25. For those who would list our achievements as proof we are somewhat 'more evolved' - so what? Yes, we can tag the jellyfish, but is that important to anything but us humans?

    The only objective of the evolution game is survival, and in those terms the jellyfish surely wins - it's been around longer and will surely be around after we vanish. For all our supposed 'intelligence', we don't seem to be bright enough to stop changing our environment in such a way that we'll render it uninhabitable for ourselves at some point. How clever is that?

    I've argued about this with friends about slugs in the past, but they don't really want to listen because (a) they like to believe humans are special and (b) I tend to be drunk when embarking on this discussion.
    #: Posted by Richard  on  01/07  at  05:56 AM
  26. If we had a time machine and could peek into the seas 10 million years ago or 10 million years from now, which kind (neither specific species would exist, probably, but which general or related form) of animal would you be more likely to find?


    Churches! Churches!
    Very small rocks!
    Gravy!

    A *duck*.


    (someone had to do it)
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  06:06 AM
  27. The only objective of the evolution game is survival, and in those terms the jellyfish surely wins - it's been around longer and will surely be around after we vanish

    Your criterion for success is that it’s been around longer? So newly evolved organisms will never achieve success in your book until they’ve lasted as long? Plus your criteria include speculation for sustained survival. It seems to me that you are showing a slight jellyfish bias.

    For all our supposed 'intelligence', we don't seem to be bright enough to stop changing our environment in such a way that we'll render it uninhabitable for ourselves at some point.

    Another speculation. Maybe global warming will make the world more habitable?
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  08:36 AM
  28. It seems to me that you are showing a slight jellyfish bias.
    It's true, I must admit that I'm a quarter-jellyfish from my Mother's side.
    Plus your criteria include speculation for sustained survival.
    OK, I may be speculating but what else can you do with regards to future events? My definition of successful may not be that, err, successful, but if not the environment, what about something like nuclear weapons? We may be more 'successful' by some definition at the present moment (and perhaps no definition has any real meaning here), but regardless of that any species that can create enough explosives to destroy itself and then threaten to use them on itself isn't really thinking long-term. Perhaps we're too successful - like a particularly deadly virus that doesn't spread because it kills so quickly that it doesn't have time to be passed on. Which is more successful - that or the common cold?
    Maybe global warming will make the world more habitable?
    Just bought an SUV, have we? Maybe it will - I'm no expert, but I would have thought it unlikely. If not for us, it might make it more habitable for jellyfish, and I for one look forward to the day I can worship our jellyfish overlords.
    #: Posted by Richard  on  01/07  at  09:28 AM
  29. I ckecked out some information in Japanese. Explotion of the jellyfish popultion recorded 1920, 58, 95 and 2002-05. I don't know its population dynamics in detail.

    >jaimito-san
    Sorry, I don't know what fried jellyfish names.
    #: Posted by y.takenaka  on  01/07  at  10:51 AM
  30. I agree that PZ's questions are surprisingly vague from a scientific point of view. For what it's worth, by many evolutionary measures bacteria are far, far more sucessful than any of us eukaryotes. I guess bacteria are less aesthetic than jellyfish. But nature is like that. Our opinions, hopes, and desires are irrelevant.

    However, the anti-humanism on display here is a bit more disturbing. I'm a "secular humanist" atheist materialist. Commenting above Richard dismisses things that are not "important to anything but us humans" and attacks the idea that "humans are special".

    Well humans are special. That's both a moral judgement and an empirical observation, neither of which relies on fairy tales about creators living in the sky.

    But if you want to say that humans are no more special than slugs while creationists say that no, humans are special, then the creationists are right about this and you are wrong. If you want to substantiate the accusation that atheism and evolution are immoral then you are going the right direction. I am glad to see others above speaking up for humanity.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  05:12 PM
  31. Maybe global warming will make the world more habitable?


    Of course it will be more habitable. For the bacteria feeding on the rotting corpses of 6 billion humans and all the decaying plant matter formerly known as northern temperate forest. But hey, that's their fault for not evolving fast enough to cope with the climate, right? Yep, those "primitive" jellyfish will still be around, but us "higher animals" will be long since extinct.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  05:37 PM
  32. Isn't the point that the questions are vague? Evolution both undermines the traditional view of humans as special and doesn't appear to offer any obvious criteria by which to make the judgement itself. Our own intuitions on this matter are so obviously biased that, except for the fact that we're just that biased, we'd never dream of relying on them. I agree with PZ's sentiment. I think the perspective evolution gives us on this matter is one of its greatest contributions outside science.

    I'd take it further and say, for example, that the often untamed medical impulse to sort the world into normal and deficient is undermined by evolution. An impaired body has no less claim to normalcy than any evolved body; each is a result of processes that bare little relation to our values. What should drive the medical impulse is empathy, suitably scientifically mediated (because our intuitions here aren't always correct and testimony is often unreliable), and the desire to help those who feel they are impaired.

    Likewise, what should guide our relationship to our fellow humans is our sense of solidarity, not our place on the foodchain or some misguided notion of evolutionary progress. And what should guide our relationship with other lifeforms is a solidarity that takes account of our differences, rather than a simplistic projection of our community onto theirs, or an appeal to the dominion of man over beast.

    In short: The world is gooey and liberal. Deal with it.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  06:33 PM
  33. But if you want to say that humans are no more special than slugs while creationists say that no, humans are special, then the creationists are right about this and you are wrong.
    But in what way are humans special, then? Obviously, I think humans are better than slugs, but that's probably only because I'm a human. I'm not 'anti-humanist', I just don't think there's any way in which which can say, in an independent and non-biased manner, that we're 'better' than any other species. Most reasons we give for that are only ones that are valid for us. Under what terms could you compare species then, other than in terms of pure survival? So, for example, we've got into space - now, I find that amazing, but in evolutionary terms it matters not one bit.
    If you want to substantiate the accusation that atheism and evolution are immoral then you are going the right direction.
    There is a difference between being immoral and being amoral. Why would evolution care about what we think is right and wrong? And although I am an atheist, that doesn't make me immoral. Just because I don't believe in God doesn't mean I act like I'm allowed to do whatever I like and ignore the consquences. It's because humans are important to me that I don't. But just because us humans think humans are special, doesn't mean anything else cares one bit about our 'achievements'.
    #: Posted by Richard  on  01/07  at  06:35 PM
  34. What makes humans special?

    Poetry, science, art, humour, love, war, architecture, language, politics, morality, history, religion, privacy, technology, sport, music, reason, cities, law, cruelty, hope, respect, cuisine, drama, justice, engineering, romance, writing, leadership, virtue, consumerism, invention, equality...

    Why anyone would give the impression that an understanding of evolution means that these things do not exist, except to undermine it, is beyond me.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  07:16 PM
  35. I'm not 'anti-humanist', I just don't think there's any way in which which can say, in an independent and non-biased manner, that we're 'better' than any other species.

    Consciousness/sentience is one. That's basically what drives morality - humans are more important than slugs for the same reason they're more important than rocks.
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  01/07  at  07:17 PM
  36. By the way, since often people use species count as a way of gauging a clade's success, you might be interested to know that there are 10,000 cnidarian species versus 50,000 chordate species. I have no idea how many scyphozoan species there are, though (there are 5,500 mammalian species).
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  01/07  at  08:58 PM
  37. What's with this notion that morality has to start from humans being "special"? Why do we have to be special to treat each other right? When you get right down to it, we're just another species trying to persist on this biosphere, if we consider ourselves equal to other species, wouldn't that result in greater respect for nature and more ethical treatment of other life? Or is this just about ego? Or semantics?

    I'm not "anti-human", I'm just human.
    #: Posted by  on  01/07  at  10:31 PM
  38. I think we're being a little hasty assuming that jellyfish will be around when we're long extinct. Considering things such as the bleaching of reefs, the disruption in most coastal ecosystems, and the increasing concentrations of persistent organic pollutants in the oceans, I wouldn't be all that surprised if hominids survive the passing of the coelenterates.
    #: Posted by Socialist Swine  on  01/08  at  03:10 AM
  39. Poetry, science, art, humour, love, war, architecture, language, politics, morality, history, religion, privacy, technology, sport, music, reason, cities, law, cruelty, hope, respect, cuisine, drama, justice, engineering, romance, writing, leadership, virtue, consumerism, invention, equality...
    This is just what I meant - these things are of course important to me and you, but I don't think it's meaningful to compare these with other species and then say we're more evolved than they are. But maybe I'm just cynical.

    It's strange how the shortest blog entries can cause the longest discussions...
    #: Posted by Richard  on  01/08  at  04:04 AM
  40. How about this? In 10 million years, in the whole universe, what are you more likely to find, jellyfishish creatures, or self temperature regulating sentient primatish creatures, or Pat Robertsonish creatures that are not evolved, but created?
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  04:12 AM
  41. what should guide our relationship with other lifeforms is a solidarity that takes account of our differences
    Interesting perspective. We humans make our living by collecting, harvesting, hunting, artificially breeding, etc. fellow critters. Our species survived because - among other things such as luck - we are rather good at it, better than our competitors. I think what should guide our relationship with other lifeforms is the cognizance that we are what we are but we try to act in an ethical way. Where feasible.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  04:23 AM
  42. When you get right down to it, we're just another species trying to persist on this biosphere, if we consider ourselves equal to other species, wouldn't that result in greater respect for nature and more ethical treatment of other life?

    Not really. If we're ethically equal to other species, then we lose the right to experiment on animals to produce medicines to prolong life, not to mention the right to eat plants, fungi, and other animals.
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  01/08  at  04:47 AM
  43. None of them, wouldn't the universe consist of smart matter.

    O.K I have recently red Prof. Tipler's book, as well as way too much sci-fi.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  06:18 AM
  44. Looking back over the thread I think I can put my finger a little more closely on what makes me uncomfortable.

    In the original post PZ asks whether humans or jellyfish are "more successful". He leaves the meaning of the remark ambiguous. But in context it could be intepreted as saying that the most important or meaningful measure of "success" is evolutionary or biological.

    I do think that this sort of remark can provide ammunition to those that believe evolution is somehow connected to "Social Darwinism" or that it makes life meaningless, criticisms that can have some resonance beyond fundamentalists.

    The only source of meaning we know of is what humanity makes for itself. But this is a source of meaning. The fact that we understand our evolutionary origins and that there is no meaning, progress or teleology in nature (outside ourselves) does not cancel out this out. Too often the impression is left, half stated, that because evolution has no purpose therefore there is no purpose in the world.

    PS Rey, by "anti-humanism" I don't mean being against humans, I mean being against humanISM.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  07:05 AM
  45. If we're ethically equal to other species, then we lose the right to experiment on animals ... not to mention the right to eat ... other animals.
    Not really. We cannot flasify our nature, we need to eat and we need antibiotics. We have the right to do what we need to do, but not to cause unnecessary suffering or useless destuction. We also have signed no contract that we shall ensure the survival of each and every one of the species currently existing.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  07:14 AM
  46. NatureSelectedMe: It's called a fitness peak. The better you are at something the less likely it is that a small change will give you an advantage.. move you further up the slope. At the same time, if all of the niches in the environment are occupied, any movement "downslope" is likely to bring you into competition with an organism that is already efficient in it's niche, so you lose.

    That's why you see high rates of speciation when the environment changes.. because the peaks are no longer stable, and there is more opportunity to move off the peak into an unoccupied niche. It also explains the long period of stasis in stable environments.

    That's the Q&D;, I'm sure someone less amateur than I can refine it.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  10:37 AM
  47. jaimito, I consider eating animals to fall within the realm of "a solidarity that takes account of our differences" and ethically-motivated vegetarianism to be a product of "a simplistic projection of our community onto theirs."
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  11:16 AM
  48. "often people use species count as a way of gauging a clade's success"

    Hmm, okay. But as Graculus mentions rates of speciation depends on environmental changes, and environments and its changes have been different for different clade. Biomass or % of earth volume occupied or % of niches occupied could be more 'specielised' success measures.

    Defining out humans without being anthropomorhic isn't easy. On a list of "special" traits not many are exclusively human. Consciousness and sentience definitions seems to early and nonspecific since we have no measurable definitions yet.

    That said, choosing between rescuing a man or a cat I would go for the man. I am after all human...
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  12:53 PM
  49. I consider eating animals to fall within the realm of "a solidarity that takes account of our differences"(Poke).
    True, in more than one way, eating does express and exercise one's solidarity. Being eaten by a wolf is to become one with The Wolf and to dissolve one's self in cosmic Nature.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  01:43 PM
  50. From your response, JK, I think we agree more than I originally thought. I personally see no need to find meaning or purpose for life beyond what us humans ascribe to our lives, but perhaps most people are hardwired to think otherwise. The thing is that meaning and purpose are pretty much outside the realm of science. Evolution and science do not address ultimate meaning and purpose because they are not observable and testable, so they get necessarily left out of the discussion, and perhaps that "no purpose" message gets implicitly stated. I don't really know how to comfort people who read that sort of message into evolution.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  03:53 PM
  51. I think coming to grips with the 'no meaning' concept is an incredibly important step in the maturation process of our awareness of what we are, - an extremely abrupt shedding of any claim to specials status in reality many wish to ascribe to our/them selves.

    Purpose, well that is much more simple on many levels, and I find it also an important concept that 'you better find one soon, and learn to appreciate what you got, because you are going to be dead for a long time'!

    That there may be no 'purpose' to existing, but at the same time, on a certain level, there is a 'purpose' in that all matter seems to behave in a paradoxical way to both increase entropy, yet facilitate more complicated systems to develop resulting in our counciousnesses ...

    Okay, I am not very good at putting that one into words right now, it sounds kind of whimsical and self congratulatory.

    But perhaps we are "more evolved" not in relation to just other life on earth, but other matter in the universe, yet we are no better because ultimately we are composed of the same matter that has to behave the exact same way as all matter or it wouldn't, couldn't be (existant).

    Perhaps there is an important step to take in our so called and self difined 'spirituallity' and this is the crux of my point, that in order to survive, (THE measure of a succesfully evolved creature or species), we must understand that there is a need to discover our own meaning, that it cannot be arbitrarily assigned in a dogmatic way be religion, or any other artificial 'assumed' method.

    There is a great, great need to understand our place, and value it, or we will continue on to destruction. We see that, no matter the good and indeed, very importantly humane intentions of religion to address this need of ours, to have meaning and purpose, we have to discover that either we DON'T NEED one and that religion unintentionally sabotages our ability to do just that - understand the preciousness of life - or that religion furnishes the WRONG meaning and purpose of life -
    We have to come to grips with what we learn through the way our realitry works, science/cause and effect and evolution

    and Rey "I don't really know how to comfort people who read that sort of message into evolution."

    not comfort or see a need to comfort anyone, or make excuses for evolition not providing this for people.

    We may very well (which of course Carl sagan talked about all the time, coming to grips with our technological power emotional immaturity to handle it) 'evolving ourselves out of the equation' by evolving into a new enviornment (being scientifically and technologically capable to manipulate forces that can destroy ourselves instantly) for which we are not adequately adapted to survive!

    I am sorry, I am trying to say that, paradoxically, we are both 'too evolved' and 'not evolved (adapted)' enough unless we now evolve our conciousness in a way that we haven't been able to understand through religion, or other artificial means.

    (Sorry, this does not feel well tied together at all, I will have to pick this up later)
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  05:03 PM
  52. I skimmed the comments and didn't notice anyone mention anything similar, so here's an interesting article about jellyfish evolution that ties into a lot of the discussion here.
    (that link is to a community with the transcribed article, I don't have the original NY Times link).

    I'm fairly new to this blog so I'm not sure if anyone's seen/read/discussed that particular article before.
    #: Posted by  on  01/08  at  05:24 PM
  53. Not really. We cannot flasify our nature, we need to eat and we need antibiotics. We have the right to do what we need to do, but not to cause unnecessary suffering or useless destuction.

    If you take this natural law view of the world, many social evils become permissible - murder, xenophobia, misogyny, rape...
    #: Posted by Alon Levy  on  01/09  at  12:06 AM
  54. Alon, Why?
    #: Posted by  on  01/09  at  01:54 AM
  55. Obviously, the jellyfish is "better adapted" to the ocean - humans are terrestrial creatures. But I think there's something truly marvelous about the fact that this human is happily swimming along with a jellyfish in an environment for which the human body is completely maladapted. It demonstrates how our ability to adapt culturally and technologically to hostile environments has overcome many of our biological limitations.
    #: Posted by  on  01/09  at  08:12 AM
  56. there are 10,000 cnidarian species versus 50,000 chordate species.

    But isn't it likely that the figures are distorted? Surely the chordates have always monopolised our attention and there are many more unidentified cnidarian species hidden away?

    Just a thought. Always seems to me we still know so little about what we're destroying.
    #: Posted by  on  01/10  at  04:17 AM
  57. "...about what we're destroying".

    Just a thought. If we are destroying them, are chordates more or less successful than cnidarians?
    #: Posted by  on  01/10  at  06:07 AM