Re: Bones or No Bones

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

----- Original Message -----
From: <philidor11@snet.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 12:55 AM

> My facetiousness was intended to reinforce the point that the
> biggest, most important impact comes not from subtle distinctions
> or selective interpretations, but from simple, unarguable facts.

Well. It is a simple, unarguable fact that ciliates, dinoflagellates and the
clade Apicomplexa, which includes the cause of malaria, share the feature of
having a lot of membrane bubbles below the cell membrane. (This system is e.
g. the reason why *Paramecium* can use its "cell mouth" and "cell anus" and
stay constant in size and shape nonetheless.) Therefore the clade that they
form, based on this and molecular evidence, is called Alveolata. Nothing
else is known to have these sacs (I might forget things like *Perkinsus*).
        These simple, unarguable facts are however not visible from
horseback, not from closer up, not even with a normal light microscope (a
confocal laser microscope should suffice, though). You need an electron
microscope. So how would you classify Alveolata? Together because of their
apparent phylogeny? In Ciliata, Sporozoa and Flagellata, as was once done
based on light microscopy? Into Linné's Chaos? Or would you ignore them
entirely because the entire beings are not visible from horseback?