Fossa

fuzzynecromancer asked:

why is taxonomy so yiffing weird? animals be like "we could pass for each other in a poor light but one of us is a specialized shrew and the other is a very big nematode"

bogleech answered:

basically as visually-oriented beings we judge everything based first on surface aesthetic but organisms are really more defined by the microscopic level so we keep being surprised.

I NEVER get over the fact that jellyfish, or at least some sot of cnidarian, evolved into basically a skin disease at some point.

bogleech

Myxozoa or “slime animals” are single-celled organisms that grow in the tissues of fish, causing tissue death or serious deformities in the host until they grow into a visible “plasmodium,” just like a slime mold.

They were once thought to be protozoa, but genetic sequencing proved they were cnidarian animals just like jellyfish, sea anemones and corals.

Their drifting “spore” phase even has a microscopic harpoon-like structure derived from what were the stinging cells of their ancestral jellies.

Here’s a bunch of them!

bogleech

Now what’s even MORE absurd is when genetic sequencing proved a type of parasitic “worm” to be a myxozoan.

So this “worm” is back to being a multi-celled animal that can slither around on its own and has a body symmetry completely unrelated to that of any other cnidarians.

Some sort of jellyfish over millions of years evolved back down to a single-celled form, and then one of those single-celled organisms re-evolved a more animal-like body again, completely and totally different but still genetically a cnidarian! Still equipped with the harpoon cell, too!

todd--chavez

Ironically, Bojack has said things about Alaskans.

Interestingly enough, here’s a quote from Raphael Bob-Waksberg from his interview with Terri Gross on NPR talking about making jokes that are not politically correct/going too far and how he got called out by a native Alaskan:

Another joke about somebody that I am not is we have a joke in Season 2 - and BoJack is a very boorish character. And we had a gag where he’s going on this press tour. And everyone’s worried that he’s going to say something offensive. And they’re going to Alaska. And he has a line about, we’re going to Alaska. What am I going to say that’s going to offend a bunch of inbred, Eskimo, blubber munchers? - is the line. And, you know, on paper, I can defend that joke. And I can say, no, the joke of that is not on the Alaskans. It’s about how stupid BoJack is and how he doesn’t realize - and clearly, the way it’s set up is, oh, he is saying this offensive thing and not even knowing that it’s offensive. So I feel like technically, we are in the right on this joke.
But someone tweeted at me a couple years ago and said, you know, I am a Native Alaskan myself. And I was watching your show. And there is not a lot of representation for my people on television. And to watch this show make this joke about my people and knowing that this was the only reference in the show of my people and knowing that nobody who works on the show is of my people, it hurt. And I cannot then say, no, but you are wrong because I did it correctly (laughter). You misinterpreted it, so you are wrong to be offended. I have to hear that note and go, oh, you’re right. Maybe we weren’t as careful about that as we should have been.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.