Plain, Simple, Primitive? Not the Jellyfish

From The New York Times:Jelly

Jellyfish have traditionally been considered simple and primitive. When you gaze at one in an aquarium tank, it is not hard to see why. Renaissance scholars considered them plants. Eighteenth-century naturalists grudgingly granted them admittance into the animal kingdom, but only just. They classified cnidarians as “zoophytes,” somewhere between animal and plant. In some ways, cnidarians are a better model for human biology than fruit flies. As strange as it may seem, gazing at a jellyfish in an aquarium is a lot like looking in the mirror.

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