[Taxacom] Animalia or Metazoa?

Fri Jul 24 02:37:45 CDT 2009

I mean the former ought to have the latter as a subset! ... it's late!

S

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

> 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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