I am currently studying for "The Test That Will Destroy Any Chances I Ever Will Have At Getting Into Grad School", aka my zoology test, so this post will be brief:
First: background. In the sponges, there are three broad types of body plan: asconoid, syconoid, and leuconoid. The names are long, arcane, and don't really relate with anything easily remembered, but I can stand this.
However, the fun part comes next. What is one of the first specimens we examine? Leucosolonia. What kind of sponge is it? A bloody asconoid! I am going to bludgeon whoever named this species to death with an oar! What would be so wrong with calling it Ascosolonia? Or is simplicity/consistency in naming just too damned difficult for these damnable taxonomists! Argh!
(although in retrospect, this massive rage has helped me remember this species somewhat better. Ah well. Such is life.)
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See? SEE? They HAVE A PLAN!!! Cut them some, y'know, slack, man! Or, alternatively, call them "wankers", in that sharp, faux-British accent thing you do, cause that makes me giggle. I think I'm just going to picture someone saying "wankers!" over and over again, and laugh myself silly. Hehehehehehe.... :-)
no worries mate, I too am screwing myself out of grad school (see rant from last post). At lest with sponges you don't have to learn to identify black smug on black rock from other black smug, and when your technique for identifying set smudges is based off of gross morphology you are basically fucked when it comes to describing differences the plesiomorphs can be something as unnoticeable as two supramaxial or possible something you can't even see on your specimen.... oh and I plan to kill Linnaeus, actually first I plan to bring him back to life then kill him and then repeat forever. With his damn classification scheme Sarcopterygii are a subclass for everything else but has to contain the class "Amphibia" at the same time. I say we kill all taxonomists, cause at lest that way we will have job opportunities
I have this theory that it's because in the early nineteenth century when they really hit stride naming things, they decided to name things after their friends, rather than anything descriptive that might help poor zoology students in the future.
But for comfort: if the test's really hard, likely everyone will be in the same boat, and likely the department will take that into consideration re: grad school.
If that's the case, I want to meet the poor bastard called Platyhelminthes. Must have gotten beat up a great deal in school.... But I see your point. Although I suspect a great deal of names were chosen so that the namer could demonstrate his skillz in Latin and Greek. Those were the 'scientific languages' of the time (Carlous Linneaus was originally named Carl Linne, he just renamed himself to sound more latin).
yah, you can't forget about l33t latin skilz, dude.
D00D! I totally declin8ed UR Fyla! It'z my 1337 Hax0r BioloGe!
(note: I am not proud of this.)
Also: a celebration is in order! I probably didn't fail this exam! (ah well, my average is high enough elsewhere to soak a bit of a loss)
Platylheminthes = flatworm. I remember that from biology.
this is correct. The little buggers are actually far more interesting than they have any right to be...
In celebration, I suggest hours upon hours of Spongebob Squarepants. That should get all that crazy science stuff out of your head!
Plus it was created by a marine biologist (these are the kind of useless facts crudding up my brain!) so its even scientific (sort of).
Or you could just drink alot... That would work too.
Anyway, congrats on the probably not failing!
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