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!
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!