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On the Origin of Species: Corsola (view source)
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[[File:222Corsola.png|200px|thumb|Corsola, the Coral Pokémon]]The difference between plant an animal can be a subtle one. Over the course of these columns we’ve met [[On the Origin of Species: Victreebel|plants that behave like animals]] and [[On the Origin of Species: Lileep and Cradily|animals that behave like plants]]. Today’s creature takes the confusion further. {{wp|Coral}}: is it animal, vegetable or mineral? | [[File:222Corsola.png|200px|thumb|Corsola, the Coral Pokémon]]The difference between plant an animal can be a subtle one. Over the course of these columns we’ve met [[On the Origin of Species: Victreebel|plants that behave like animals]] and [[On the Origin of Species: Lileep and Cradily|animals that behave like plants]]. Today’s creature takes the confusion further. {{wp|Coral}}: is it animal, vegetable or mineral? | ||
It certainly has characteristics of all three. We do tend to think of coral as a solid, rock-like mass. There are whole islands made out of the stuff. Then again, it also seems to be alive, and a living, immobile mass immediately seems like it should some sort of plant. It’s only upon closer observation that it defies all of these expectations and turns out to be an animal. Or, more accurately, millions of tiny, identical animals living together in colonies they’ve constructed. The tough substance we associate with coral is the | It certainly has characteristics of all three. We do tend to think of coral as a solid, rock-like mass. There are whole islands made out of the stuff. Then again, it also seems to be alive, and a living, immobile mass immediately seems like it should some sort of plant. It’s only upon closer observation that it defies all of these expectations and turns out to be an animal. Or, more accurately, millions of tiny, identical animals living together in colonies they’ve constructed. The tough substance we associate with coral is the calcium carbonate exoskeleton formed by these creatures; the creatures themselves have soft bodies. | ||
The first person to argue that coral should be regarded as an animal was the 11th century Persian polymath {{wp|Al-Biruni}}. As one of the most important scholars of the medieval Islamic era, biology was a mere sideline for Al-Biruni, but he nonetheless argued that both coral and {{wp|sponge}}s should be considered animals because of the way they reacted when touched. The idea didn’t catch on, and it wasn’t until 800 years later that another great polymath, {{wp|William Herschel}}, made the same claim. Like Al-Biruni, Herschel is more famous for other things – he wrote over twenty symphonies and discovered the planet Uranus, to name a few examples – but it was he who looked at coral under a microscope, and realized that coral cells lacked {{wp|cell wall}}s, a characteristic component of plants. Coral therefore couldn’t be a plant, and had to be some kind of animal. | The first person to argue that coral should be regarded as an animal was the 11th century Persian polymath {{wp|Al-Biruni}}. As one of the most important scholars of the medieval Islamic era, biology was a mere sideline for Al-Biruni, but he nonetheless argued that both coral and {{wp|sponge}}s should be considered animals because of the way they reacted when touched. The idea didn’t catch on, and it wasn’t until 800 years later that another great polymath, {{wp|William Herschel}}, made the same claim. Like Al-Biruni, Herschel is more famous for other things – he wrote over twenty symphonies and discovered the planet Uranus, to name a few examples – but it was he who looked at coral under a microscope, and realized that coral cells lacked {{wp|cell wall}}s, a characteristic component of plants. Coral therefore couldn’t be a plant, and had to be some kind of animal. | ||