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from the touched-by-his-noodly-appendage dept.
Actually, "it" (the bizarre-looking creature) is Bathyphysa conifer, a deep-sea critter that was recently seen swimming off the coast of Angola. Workers at the oil and gas company BP videotaped this strange-looking animal while collecting video footage some 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) under the sea with a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV). Not knowing what the noodle-armed creature was, the BP crewmembers named it after what they thought it most resembled: the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Similar to corals, the spaghettilike B. conifer is made up of many different multicellular organisms known as zooids. These organisms are a lot like regular, solitary animals, except that they're attached to other zooids, forming a more complex organism. One zooid, developed from a fertilized egg, starts the process, and then other zooids bud from the original zooid until a whole animal is formed, according to the siphonophore website.
The implications for Pastafarianism are staggering.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @11:26AM
Now that we're over the Pastafarian comments, can someone explain to the difference between a colonial animal, arising from one cell (analogous to an egg) that divides and differentiates into the constituent elements of the colonial animal, and a man, arising from one cell (an egg) that divides and differentiates into the constituent elements of the human animal? Further, since man abounds in life, the various fauna of the bowels and body not related to the original cell, and since the various organs of man sometimes have different genetic identities (a paradox known as chimerism), is any man an individual and not a colony?
(Score: 2) by bugamn on Monday August 17 2015, @03:57AM
If I remember well, those kinds of animals can reconstitute from a fraction of a colony, while a man can't. But I think that isn't all. Maybe the way those cells develop?