Hoxful Monsters

Dont get confused what you are seeing is infact an animal which lives on our own planet Earth like we do.Star nosed Moles ( Scalopus aquatus ) Scalopus aquaticus is found from southeastern Wyoming, South Dakota, and central Texas, prefers fields and open woodland.This animal ranges somewhere between 110-180 mm in length and body is covered by velvet fur.
Adult star-nosed mole exhibit heavily clawed forelimbs, well equipped for digging, and the twenty-two touch-sensitive appendages ringing its snout.These fleshy pink “fingers” on the snout of the star-nosed mole point to this …

Anomalocaris which ruled the oceans during the Cambrian era is an extinct genus of anomalocarids, which are thought to be closely related to the arthropods,on the basis of its jointed body(But without doubt it belonged to ecdysozoa which includes moulting and some segmented animals) .Since the days of Joseph Frederick Whiteaves in 1892 when he for the first time described Anomalocaris as a separate crustacean-like creature due to its resemblance to the tail of a lobster or shrimp ,It continued to mislead palaeontologists. It took some time for the …

Classification of Fossils is sometimes tricky as they do not follow systematics of living organisms and here come stem groups to the rescue.In order to know about stem groups we need to understand Crown Group also.
Stem groups:
Stem group organisms always lack one or more features that are present at the base of the crown group to which they are attached.

Archaeopteryx
Originally uploaded by Sebastian
Niedlich (Grabthar)

Crown Group:
A crown group is a living clade or monophyletic group which consists of the last common ancestor of all living examples and all of its descendants.But …

Just trying to kill time on sunday afternoon as i didnot have enough motivation to do micro injections for generating transgenic Drosophila I was surfing some webpages and one of them led to new Technical note published in online first section of development Genes and evolution.Louis A. Boell & Gregor Bucher came out with a protocol for performing the difficult task of In situ Hybrization in Rotifer Brachionus plicatilis and also method for culturing this species so that this could establish B. plicatilis as a rotifer model system.The expression …

We Discussed so many times on this blog about the need of appropriate model system to under take the challenge provided by the genomic era and expansion of integrative disciplines like evo devo,which requires researchers to adopt a more integrative approach while choosing model organisms.Another important point which should be considered in choosing model systems is their phylogenic position ,so that they might serve as a complement to existing model systems in reconstructing evolutionary history.

DP2.1.1.6X.14.H
Originally uploaded by pelagosphera

The starlet anemone “Nematostella Vectensis” is becoming an increasingly important model system for …

The phylum Porifera consists of Sponges meaning “Pore bearer”,are mostly marine animals.These animals are among simplest of animals lacking gastrulated embryos (Gastrulation is a phase early in the development of animal embryos,during which the morphology of the embryo is dramatically restructured by cell migration.Gastrulation is followed by organogenesis, when individual organs develop within the newly formed germ layers) and sponges are also devoid of proper digestive system.Diffusion is responsible for circulation and excretion in these organisms.They also lack nerves,muscles and tissue organization.

Blue …

At first glance it looks like a slug worm but don’t be surprised it belongs to the same super phyla Deuterostomia, which also includes human beings .Deuterostomes can be classified into four
* Phylum Chordata (vertebrates and Urochoradata,e.g. Ascidians,Cephalaochordata e.g.Amphioxus)
* Phylum Echinodermata (starfishes, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, etc.)
* Phylum Hemichordata (acorn worms and possibly graptolites)
* Phylum Xenoturbellida (2 species of worm-like animals)
Xenoturbella was first thought to be a relative of bivalve molluscs, such as mussels …