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Updated: May 29, 2025
This singular and interesting weed propagates itself on the waves, and there sustains, as on the shore of New Providence, zoöphytes and mollusks which also abound in these latitudes.
Animals, too, such as polyps or zoophytes, and many beautiful and elaborate worms, multiply by "fission," dividing into two or more parts, each of which becomes a complete animal.
G. Johnston's "British Zoophytes," p. 407, or the excellent little RESUME thereof in Dr. Landsborough's book on the same subject, is really a saddening one, as one sees how loth were, not merely dreamers like, Marsigli or Bonnet, but sound- headed men like Pallas and Linne, to give up the old sense-bound fancy, that these corals were vegetables, and their polypes some sort of living flowers.
Bivalve and univalve mollusca seem to be rare at the greatest depths; but starfishes, sea urchins and other echinoderms, zoophytes, sponges, and protozoa abound. It is obvious that the Challenger has the privilege of opening a new chapter in the history of the living world. She cannot send down her dredges and her trawls into these virgin depths of the great ocean without bringing up a discovery.
Before us lay some picturesque ruins, which betrayed the hand of man and not that of the Creator. There were vast heaps of stone, amongst which might be traced the vague and shadowy forms of castles and temples, clothed with a world of blossoming zoophytes, and over which, instead of ivy, sea-weed and fucus threw a thick vegetable mantle.
The stony axis which gives strength to the stem may be traced at this extremity into a mere vessel filled with granular matter. At low water hundreds of these zoophytes might be seen, projecting like stubble, with the truncate end upwards, a few inches above the surface of the muddy sand. When touched or pulled they suddenly drew themselves in with force, so as nearly or quite to disappear.
As for zoophytes, for a few moments I was able to marvel at a wonderful, orange-hued hydra from the genus Galeolaria that clung to the glass of our port panel; it consisted of a long, lean filament that spread out into countless branches and ended in the most delicate lace ever spun by the followers of Arachne.
But no one who has not looked down into tropical or subtropical seas can conceive the amazing wealth of the Red Sea in organic life. Its bottom is carpeted or paved with marine plants, with zoophytes and with shells, while its waters are teeming with infinitely varied forms of moving life.
Between these plates and in the protected crevices on the reef, a multitude of branching zoophytes and other productions flourish, but the Porites and Millepora alone seem able to resist the fury of the breakers on its upper and outer edge: at the depth of a few fathoms other kinds of stony corals live. Mr.
They feel when they are touched, seek for food, seize and devour it; they are of various kinds and colours, and are known under the general name of zoophytes. "And this which glitters in such beautiful colours on the sea, is called pyrosoma," said Ernest. "See, here are some I have caught in my hat; you may see them move.
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