[Taxacom] Animalia or Metazoa?

Fri Jul 24 02:35:06 CDT 2009

Actually, a Google search for "Kingdom Metazoa" gets 10,400 hits

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Kingdom+Metazoa%22&meta=&aq=f&oq=

but "Subkingdom Metazoa" gets 11,100 hits

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22subkingdom+Metazoa%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

which is bloody strange, 'cos the latter ought to have the former as a subset!

That's Google logic for you!!!

S

Quoting Stephen Thorpe <stho002 at postbox.auckland.ac.nz>:

> Yes, but we wouldn't want to rename Tree of Life as "Google's  
> Greatest Hits", would we???? :)
>
> S
>
> Quoting Tony.Rees at csiro.au:
>
>> "current usage" examples:
>>
>> - Animalia - currently 5,810,000 hits on Google
>>
>> - Metazoa - currently 1,240,000
>>
>> - "Tony Rees" - a paltry 18,900 (and that is mainly motorcyclists  
>> and footballers, I don't appear till #19...)
>>
>> Actually, Metazoa is higher than I expected :)
>>
>> Cheers - Tony
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Stephen Thorpe [mailto:s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz]
>> Sent: Friday, 24 July 2009 5:12 PM
>> To: Rees, Tony (CMAR, Hobart); Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Animalia or Metazoa?
>>
>> OK, that's nice and clear. I personally prefer Animalia, so I like
>> your message! For one thing, sponges have always been considered as
>> animals, but I'm not quite sure when they became honorary metazoans?!
>> By the way, I can't see any reason why the name Animalia would be any
>> more ill defined than Metazoa, except only that it doesn't mean much
>> etymologically (but then how much more can 'higher animal' mean, if
>> 'animal' lacks much meaning?) Now all we have to do is convince all
>> those who use such terms as "Kingdom Metazoa" - yuck!
>> Gives a whole new meaning to "save the animals"! :)
>> Cheers,
>> Stephen
>>
>> Quoting Tony.Rees at csiro.au:
>>
>>> OK, mixed messages probably - I am saying that for a long time
>>> "Animalia" has excluded protozoa in most authoritative, high
>>> acceptance schemes (notably Whittaker, Margulis, and variants
>>> thereof, all the way back to Haeckel). Back in the 30s-50s one
>>> author (Copeland) used "Metazoa" for the same concept but that is in
>>> fact a different issue. If you (or someone's) argument against
>>> "Animalia" is the fact that it is ill defined, I would say that is
>>> not so. If you then wish to argue the toss for Animalia versus
>>> Metazoa, I would not venture an opinion except that Copeland used
>>> Metazoa, Whittaker and Margulis both preferred Animalia and it seems
>>> to me that this is the more widespread current usage (though as
>>> ever, I could be wrong).
>>>
>>> Regards - Tony
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Stephen Thorpe [mailto:s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz]
>>> Sent: Friday, 24 July 2009 4:51 PM
>>> To: Rees, Tony (CMAR, Hobart); Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>>> Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Animalia or Metazoa?
>>>
>>> Tony: I don't understand the logical structure of your argument. Are
>>> you arguing for Animalia, for Metazoa, or saying that it doesn't
>>> matter? I don't really see the relevance in citing some historical
>>> publications - the fact remains that today, some taxonomists think we
>>> should all use Metazoa, and others think we should all use Animalia. I
>>> am trying to get a handle on the terms of this dispute...
>>> Regards,
>>> Stephen
>>>
>>> Quoting Tony.Rees at csiro.au:
>>>
>>>> Stephen, you write:
>>>>
>>>> "It just leaves open my initial question about
>>>> whether Metazoa or Animalia is the best name for the clade left over
>>>> when you remove the old "Protozoa" from the old "Animalia"."
>>>>
>>>> As I attempted to point out, in the three most influential systems
>>>> published over the last 100+ years (Haeckel, Whittaker, Margulis),
>>>> it is a non-issue: Animalia and Protozoa (or Protictista) are
>>>> already treated as distinct entities. In fact Copeland was also
>>>> doing so in his 4-kingdom scheme(s) too in the 1930s through 1950s
>>>> (refer the Leedale paper previously cited for details and reproduced
>>>> scheme), which I omitted to mention, although he uses the name
>>>> "Metazoa" (I should probably not have said that).
>>>>
>>>> Regards - Tony
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>>>> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen
>>>> Thorpe
>>>> Sent: Friday, 24 July 2009 4:31 PM
>>>> To: kennethkinman at webtv.net; Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>>>> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Animalia or Metazoa?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks Ken - that clarifies for me current thinking on the
>>>> phylogenetic relationships between sponges and the rest of the, er,
>>>> Metazoa (?=Animalia). It just leaves open my initial question about
>>>> whether Metazoa or Animalia is the best name for the clade left over
>>>> when you remove the old "Protozoa" from the old "Animalia". Opinion
>>>> seems to be divided. Names with typification go with the type, so you
>>>> can use the same name for very different taxonomic concepts, provided
>>>> only that the concept includes the type. Names without typification
>>>> are trickier. If you prefer to use the name Metazoa, then you think
>>>> that the name should change if the concept changes, but it doesn't
>>>> have to be that way. There is good reason for arguing that since your
>>>> Metazoa includes all the "typical" animals in the popular sense, we
>>>> should still use the name Animalia for it, and so Protozoa were
>>>> removed from Animalia when it was discovered that they [Protozoa]
>>>> weren't in fact animals. It's a semantic issue, rather than a
>>>> scientific one, but it does have implications for classification
>>>> (which is a mixture of science and semantics)...
>>>>
>>>> By the way, imagine the uproar at a strictly cladistic
>>>> reclassification of Animalia (or Metazoa) if it does turn out that the
>>>> sister taxon to Eumetazoa is just some subclade of calcareous sponges!
>>>>
>>>> Stephen
>>>>
>>>> Quoting Kenneth Kinman <kennethkinman at webtv.net>:
>>>>
>>>>> Stephen,
>>>>>      Kingdom Metazoa = Phylum Porifera (sponges) + Eumetazoa (all the
>>>>> other phyla).  The only question these days is whether the sister group
>>>>> of Eumetazoa is all of crown group Porifera or some subclade thereof.
>>>>> Many researchers believe the latter, and that Eumetazoa evolved
>>>>> specifically from the calcareous sponges, which would make the crown
>>>>> group Porifera definitely paraphyletic (and even the crown group
>>>>> calcareous sponges could easily be paraphyletic as well).
>>>>>       The sponges themselves almost certainly evolved from
>>>>> choanoflagellates, making the latter paraphyletic (as well as the
>>>>> Protozoa as a whole).  The names are thus perfect reflections of what
>>>>> they are evolutionarily.  Protozoa means "first animals", and their
>>>>> descendants Metazoa ("higher animals").  Makes perfect sense to me.
>>>>>     Animalia (in the sense of Protozoa + Metazoa; first animals +
>>>>> higher animals) is also paraphyletic with respect to the photosynthetic
>>>>> protists when they acquired plastids.  Metazoa on the other hand is a
>>>>> clade, unless you believe those old theories that Porifera evolved from
>>>>> choanoflagellates, and Eumetazoa evolved from some other group of
>>>>> Protozoa.
>>>>>       ----------Ken
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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