Zoophyte

A zoophyte (animal-plant) is an obsolete term for an organism thought to be intermediate between animals and plants, or an animal with plant-like attributes or appearance. In the 19th century they were reclassified as Radiata which included various taxa, a term superseded by Coelenterata referring more narrowly to the animal phyla Cnidaria (coral animals, true jellies, sea anemones, sea pens, and their allies), sponges, and Ctenophora (comb jellies).

A group of strange creatures that exist somewhere on, or between, the boundaries of plants and animals kingdoms were the subject of considerable debate in the eighteenth century. Some naturalists believed that they were a blend of plant and animal; other naturalists considered them to be entirely either plant or animal (such as sea anemones).^[1]

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Plants and animals are easy to tell apart. This is a plant and this is an animal -- but THIS is BOTH! Hey animals and nearby listening plants, Trace here for DNews, thanks for tuning in! If you look back to middle school science, you might remember Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Easy to remember because, Kids Playing Chicken on Freeways Get Smashed. Kingdom has five groups, Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plante, Animalia, but it was invented by humans, so sometimes there are exceptions to every rule. To be a plant, an organism has to make it's own food and have cell walls. To be an animal you acquire nutrients by ingestion and don't have cell walls. There's more to it, but that's the basic distinction. This distinction goes even deeper. As biologists have looked into the genes that make up the DNA of our planet's organisms, classification has gotten... *eeeahhhhh* let's just say fuzzy. In this case, two studies published in the journal Genome Research describe the way microRNA affects plants and animals differently. Animals, like humans, have microRNA which float around the cell nucleus activating and deactivating genes. It's a little technical on HOW, but in essence: animal microRNA affects how DNA and RNA express genes. This helps organisms adapt to changing diets, environmental stimuli and so on. Though, while animal microRNA affects lots of different gene expressions, plant RNA is far more specific. The sea anemone is classified as an animal, because its DNA is similar to a vertebrate, it gathers food and does not have a cell wall, but its microRNA behaves as a plant! Go home nature, you're drunk. This isn't the only Plantimal out there that gives the biologists a nerdgasm // Plantimal! It's a thing now, I want all the credits // A 2007 study from University Of Kalmar in Sweden found some species of algae which were plantimals ... they dubbed them mixotrophs because they can produce energy from sunlight, like a plant, but they EAT other things, like an ANIMAL! Another is the Mesodinium chamaeleon which sounds like a fancy lizard, but it's actually a single-celled organism. It EATS OTHER THINGS -- so animal -- but it can use the things it's eaten and live off THEIR photosynthesis while it's inside its body -- until the prey is digested. Presumably that's why it's called a chameleon, because depending on whether it's eaten green or red algae it will change color. The process of eating something and using it, evolved 2 BILLION years ago. It's called endosymbiosis. When the first single celled animals ate bacterium, the prey cell became part of the predator cell -- this is how we got mitochondria! Many single-celled organisms flirt with the animal-plant boundary line depending on their needs and adaptations... biologists are total frenemies with them... remember frenemies? Haha, so dumb. The sea anemone is significant, because it's multi-cellular, and the gene regulation is similar to that of a fruit fly, which means there's likely a common link between human, fly and sea anemone 600 million years ago. I think maybe plants and animals are part of a thinner line... like fruits and vegetables... what do you think? Put your thoughts down below and subscribe. Thanks for watching DNews today.

Ancient and medieval to early modern era

In Eastern cultures such as Ancient China fungi were classified as plants in the Traditional Chinese Medicine texts, and cordyceps, and in particular Ophiocordyceps sinensis, were considered zoophytes.^[2]

Zoophytes are common in medieval and renaissance era herbals, notable examples including the Tartar Lamb, a legendary plant which grew sheep as fruit.^[3] Zoophytes appeared in many influential early medical texts, such as Dioscorides's De Materia Medica and subsequent adaptations and commentaries on that work, notably Mattioli's Discorsi. Zoophytes are frequently seen as medieval attempts to explain the origins of exotic, unknown plants with strange properties (such as cotton, in the case of the Tartar Lamb as theorized by Henry Lee, Fellow of the Linnean Society in the book The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary).^[4]^[5]^[6]

Reports of zoophytes continued into the seventeenth century and were commented on by many influential thinkers of the time period, including Francis Bacon. It was not until 1646 that claims of zoophytes began to be concretely refuted, and skepticism towards claims of zoophytes mounted throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.^[3]

18th to 19th century, natural history

As natural history and natural philosophy developed in the 18th century, there was considerable debate and disagreements between naturalists about organisms on or near the boundary between the animal and plant kingdoms, and how to relate them in taxonomy. Interest in the topic began in the 1730s with the research by Abraham Trembley into polyps.^[7]

When Carl Linnaeus published the 10th edition of Systema Naturae in 1758, marking the start of zoological nomenclature, he set out three divisions of the Kingdom of Nature: rocks, plants and animals, "though all three exist in the lithophytes", the corals. He defined zoophytes as "a composite small organism, with both animal and plant characteristics". He acknowledged contributions from the coralline expert Ellis by describing him as a "lynx-eyed discoverer of zoophytes". In 1761 he wrote to Ellis that "zoophytes have a mere vegetable life, and are increased every year under their bark, like trees" as shown by growth rings on the trunk of Gorgonia, they are "therefore vegetables, with flowers like small animals. As zoophytes are, many of them, covered with a stony coat, the Creator has been pleased that they should receive nourishment by their naked flowers. He has therefore furnished each with a pore, which we call a mouth." After wide research, in 1786 Ellis was still unconvinced "what or where the link is that divides the animal and vegetable kingdoms of Nature", and pressed Linnaeus to classify most as animals. He subsequently proposed that the animals of the corals construct their own structures, in a book completed by Daniel Solander.^[8]

Georges Cuvier in his Le Règne Animal of 1817 titled one of his four divisions (Embranchements) of the animal kingdom "Les Zoophytes ou Animaux Rayonnés".^[9] An 1834 English translation uses the term Radiata, and titles the division "The Zoophytes, or Animalia Radiata",^[10] an expanded 1840 translation notes that "Neither of these names is literally applicable, for all the animals in the division are not radiated; and the very name Zoophyte, 'plant - animal,' is a contradiction. In England, the term Zoophyte is much more restricted than in France, but it is equally inapplicable, excepting, perhaps, to those species, about which there are still disputes as to whether they are animals or vegetables."^[11] Despite its scientific obsolescence, Charles Darwin continued to use the term throughout his studies.

References

^ Kirkpatrick, E. M., ed. (1983). Chambers 20th Century Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers. p. 1524.
^ Halpern, Miller (2002). Medicinal Mushrooms. New York, New York: M. Evans and Company, Inc. pp. 64–65. ISBN 0-87131-981-0.
^ ^a ^b Appleby, John H. (1997). "The Royal Society and the Tartar Lamb". Notes and Records of the Royal Society. 51 (1): 23–34. doi:10.1098/rsnr.1997.0003. JSTOR 532033. S2CID 71554165.
^ Mabey, Richard (2015). The Cabaret of Plants : Botany and the Imagination. London: Profile Books. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-86197-662-8. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
^ Lee, Henry (1887). The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary : A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington. pp. 1–60. Retrieved 18 December 2023.
^ Large, Mark F.; John E. Braggins (2004). Tree Ferns. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. p. 360. ISBN 978-0-88192-630-9.
^ Gibson, Susannah (December 1, 2012). "On Being An Animal, or, the Eighteenth-Century Zoophyte Controversy in Britain". History of Science. 50 (4): 453–476. doi:10.1177/007327531205000404. ISSN 0073-2753. S2CID 143139550.
^ James Bowen (6 January 2015). The Coral Reef Era: From Discovery to Decline: A history of scientific investigation from 1600 to the Anthropocene Epoch. Springer. pp. 29–. ISBN 978-3-319-07479-5.
^ Cuvier, Georges. 1817. Le règne animal distribué d'après son organisation pour servir de base a l'histoire naturelle des animaux. 4 vols. Paris: Deterville.
^ Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. Volume 12./
^ Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert De baron Cuvier (1840). Cuvier's Animal Kingdom,: Arranged According to Its Organisation; Forming the Basis for a Natural History of Animals, and an Introduction to Comparative Anatomy. Mammalia, Birds, and Reptiles, by Edward Blyth. The Fishes and Radiata, by Robert Mudie. The Molluscous Animals, by George Johnston, ... The Articulated Animals, by J.O. Westwood, ... Illustrated by Three Hundred Engravings on Wood. Wm. S. Orr and Company. p. 638.

External links

The dictionary definition of zoophyte at Wiktionary

This page was last edited on 19 December 2023, at 17:51

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