#56733: Martin Brazeau — 01/06  at  06:39 PM
PZ, you need to define what a 'kind' is! ;)

Still, three quarters of a billion years says I should bank on the 'jellyfish kind' being around for the next 10 million.

#56736: — 01/06  at  06:46 PM
Holy crap, I didn't know they got that big. That's awesome.

#56744: — 01/06  at  07:46 PM
Not just a beautiful rarity,
it's possible that this is another symptom of
overfishing,
global warming, or
ecosystem deterioration.

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=5254955
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20051220f4.htm

#56746: — 01/06  at  08:20 PM
Good point ^_^
It seems to me that the degree of evolution has nothing to do with adaptability.
So the probability of finding a human on this planet in 100 million years time should be the lowest of all living creatures.

#56756: Frederick J. Ide — 01/06  at  09:01 PM
They are not "Jellyfish"--the correct term is "Jellies"

#56757: cpbvk — 01/06  at  09:06 PM
Wow. What a spectacular animal. Is that what they call a "Lion's Mane?"

#56767: — 01/06  at  10:00 PM
No, the correct term in American, non-scientific, non-anal English is "jellyfish". Jellies are these things:

#56768: Martin Wagner — 01/06  at  10:05 PM
Damn! That thing is huge!

#56769: — 01/06  at  10:19 PM
Bah, I'm so tired of the apologists for lower life forms, trying to "put us in our place." Yes, the jelly fish was around 10 million years ago, and has gotten nowhere since then. Which one of us is more evolved? It still occupies the ocean. We are down in the ocean with it, and on land, and in the air, and in space. We have actually gotten somewhere in 10 million years. Our intelligence is invaluable. We are tagging it, and it doesn't even know that it's being tagged.

#56770: Alon Levy — 01/06  at  10:26 PM
I'm not sure about the other questions, but aren't cnidaria considered very basal and hence less evolved than bilateria?

#56771: cpbvk — 01/06  at  10:36 PM
Oh, c'mon...what does "more evolved" mean? It means untested, as opposed to "tried and true." I poked around a bit, and found another article with a pic:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-1910322,00.html

#56776: y.takenaka — 01/06  at  11:01 PM
This Jellyfish call japanese "echizen kurage". Kurage means jellyfish in English. Echizen is a Japanese sea site of the Honshuland. I knew what this jellyfish is from Japanese media.
The follow is echizen kurage's images of images.google.com:
http://images.google.com/images?q=%E3%82%A8%E3%83%81%E3%82%BC%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AF%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B2

#56781: Ralph — 01/06  at  11:46 PM
I fail to see why "more evolved" should be considered synonymous with "untested." Suppose BOTH humans and jellyfish were found in similar forms (by some metric) 100 million years from now. Then both would be quite "tested." Which one would then be "more evolved"?

One could perhaps define "more complex" in some systematic way. Is that the same as "more evolved"? No, I don't think so.

In fact, I cannot identify any useful meaning for the phrase "more evolved."

#56782: Ralph — 01/06  at  11:56 PM
Another thought:

Perhaps someone would care to submit a "gorgeous picture of a jellyfish attaching a sensor to a diver in the Sea of Japan."

That might add something to the "more evolved" debate.

(My apologies to Jared Diamond, as the above is derived from the big question posed in "Guns, Germs and Steel.")

#56790: — 01/07  at  01:50 AM
The jellyfish wasn't on the verge of destroying its own (and everyone else's) ecosystem a mere milion or two years into its existence, those stupid unevolved things.

#56791: — 01/07  at  01:53 AM
Okay, what I would like to know is how they attach the sensor.

#56792: — 01/07  at  02:00 AM
I guess I'm the only one to detect a frightening similarity between this holy cnidarian und unseres geliebtes Fliegendes Spaghetti Monstrum.

#56793: — 01/07  at  02:12 AM
Just a thought…which of the two animals in the foreground is more complex, better adapted to its environment, more "highly evolved", more successful?

Interesting comparison. Don’t we have to define “complex, better adapted and highly evolved” before we can answer this? If by complex do we mean a highly differentiated cellular organism? Better adapted could mean very successful in surviving in it’s environment. Highly evolved could mean how derivative it is to it’s ancestral form. I could be biased, but I think Humans win on all fronts.

I always wonder about living fossils like the jellyfish. It seems once and organism has reached a point of success, evolution slows down. I don’t mean mutations won’t occur at the same rate, but they get less selected. That has to be, doesn’t it? Aren’t there fossils of jellyfish 200 million years old? After all that time, all those mutations, wouldn’t there be something that would out-compete the jellyfish form and cause it to go extinct? I know this sounds like Mel Gibson’s “why are there monkeys still around” argument but it’s not. Everyone knows monkeys are still around because they live in a different niche.

#56794: — 01/07  at  02:18 AM
I'd say the animal on the left is more adaptable vs. adapted. The fact that its there in the sea at all shows its ability to adapt to multiple new environments, thus having a higher likelihood of surviving radical environmental changes through the ages.
As for more evolved, aren't all creatures equal on that level? The general idea is that life appeared at one point in time and species radiated out from there. A sponge is a more highly evolved sponge than a dog is, but everythings been evolving for the same amount of time.

#56800: Republic of Palau — 01/07  at  04:10 AM
Bad Jim: 'There is only one FSM and the jellyfish are his prophets...'

#56801: — 01/07  at  04:11 AM
Which of the two animals is more complex?

According to W. Brian Arthur, complex systems are systems in process that constantly evolve and unfold over time. Ergo, man is complex, jellyfish less so.

Which of the two animals is more successful?

I dont know what is success in biology. Is it survival? If so, both animals are equally alive. Is it higher metabolism? Then humans are more active, we process more energy.

I wonder how it tastes. I ate fried jellyfish in Tien Jin but the Japanese prepare these things differently. What is it called in Japanese?

#56806: — 01/07  at  05:14 AM
more complex? - probably the human

better adapted? - definitely the jellyfish

more "highly evolved" - neither

more successful? - too poorly defined

more likely to find? - I'm plumping for jellyfish

#56807: — 01/07  at  05:48 AM
There is just this small spark of mind to understand the whole sweep of time. Living forever is more scary than dying

#56808: — 01/07  at  05:51 AM
But would CONSCIOUS INTELLIGENCE exist? The species/kind is harbouring it is irrelevant

#56809: Richard — 01/07  at  05:56 AM
For those who would list our achievements as proof we are somewhat 'more evolved' - so what? Yes, we can tag the jellyfish, but is that important to anything but us humans?

The only objective of the evolution game is survival, and in those terms the jellyfish surely wins - it's been around longer and will surely be around after we vanish. For all our supposed 'intelligence', we don't seem to be bright enough to stop changing our environment in such a way that we'll render it uninhabitable for ourselves at some point. How clever is that?

I've argued about this with friends about slugs in the past, but they don't really want to listen because (a) they like to believe humans are special and (b) I tend to be drunk when embarking on this discussion.