The influence of Greek mythology upon biological nomenclature is considérable (Thompson 1895, 1947) though nowadays often forgotten. As the ancient origins of names recède into the mists of time the names become detached from them. Freed from their original context many names in use since the eighteenth century or earlier have survived farreaching changes in the perspectives of science. The history of the name Alcyonium, briefly presented here, is an example which illustrâtes how nomenclature may evolve from myth and poetry as well as science. I hope Pierre Tardent would have liked this story, for he appreciated the resources of history and would never underestimate what earlier authors had discovered (Tardent 1987, 1993). The story runs from antiquity to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and is set in scientific perspectives earlier than our own. Before telling it, an attempt is made to recapture thèse perspectives and to bring less familiar modes of thought into the picture. This account begins with thumbnail sketches which recède century by century from modem times to the Renaissance (Singer 1931, 1959, Singer & Underwood 1962, Bodenheimer 1958, Petit & Théodoridès 1962, and also Roger 1997, Jahn 1998).

Glancing back 50 years we see the post-war 1950’s as trailblazing years for modem physiology, for medicine and for the future molecular biology and genetics. Powerful computers were being developed and chess players felt challenged. The theory of plate tectonics was still dormant and its implications were not generally recognized. On the other hand the centenary of “The Origin of Species” was about to be celebrated.

Stepping a hundred years thence to the 1850’s one finds horsepower coexisting with steam as railways and factories developed. Darwin’s séminal influence was as dawn still below the horizon. But new precepts of comparative anatomy and physiology were already being adopted, the cell theory had gained ground and génération and development were beginning to be understood. Scientific knowledge was increasingly enriched by travel and exploration. Scientists communicated through letters and meetings, and published thanks to a growing number of scientific societies and journals. Their early éducation at this time might include Latin if not Greek.

The century before this differed even more from our own. In the 1750’s Linnaeus’ work shone like a beacon. It may be recalled that at this time Aris218 ROBSON EA totle’s “Ladder of Nature” still spanned the living world (Singer 1931, 1959) and fossils remained puzzling. Many fine naturalists turned their attention to animais and plants, sometimes minerais; and they created or enriched muséums and wrote books. By 1750 microscopy had become an important tool. Leeuwenhoek’s sophisticated use of simple lenses for high magnification had been unique, but for other researchers even low magnifications were far better than none. The observant naturalists who transcribed what they saw were often pioneers (Trembley 1744). To an enthusiastic contemporary the century was remarkable for the discoveries of electricity and of Hydra spp. (Le Cat 1754). At the frontiers of science knowledge was communicated really fast through correspondence and meetings. It was an exhilarating period even if those interested in new ideas were sometimes held back by the influences of legend and history. Within medicine we would recognize the basis of anatomy and of some aspects of physiology and pharmacy, although in 1750 much still lay ahead: most of the basis of modem chemistry, the contributions to physiology of von Haller and J Mûller, and advances in the understanding of disease due to Jenner, Pasteur and Lister. Latin served as a lingua franca for spécial texts, and was an accessible médium.

Hydra Linnaeus, 1758 Published in: Linnaeus, C. (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Editio Decima, Reformata [10th Revised Edition], Vol. 1: 824 Pp. Laurentius Salvius: Holmiae., Tomus I. Editio Decima, Reformata, [iii], 824 p. Impensis Direct. Laurentii Salvii. Holmiae [Stockholm], 1758. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.542

Taxonomicon Entity: Hydridae (Family)..Chlorohydra (Genus)..Pelmatohydra (Genus)..Hydra (Genus)….Hydra americana (Species)….Hydra attenuata (Species)….Hydra canadensis (Species)….Hydra carnea (Species)….Hydra circumcincta (Species)….Hydra graysoni (Species)….Hydra littoralis (Species)….Hydra oligactis (Species)….Hydra oxycnida (Species)….Hydra utahensis (Species)….Hydra vulgaris (Species) Authorship SN2000 author citation : C. Linnaeus, 1758 Original name, rank & spelling : Linnaeus, C. 1758. Syst. Nat. (ed. 10) 1: 816. Types Type of : Hydridae (Family) Dana, 1846 Type of : Hydriformes (Order) Ref: E.R. Lankester, 1877: 443. [inferred] Variants Unavailable name : Hydra (Genus) nom. inval. Homonyms Junior homonym (allowed) : Hydra (Moon) H.A. Weaver et al., 2005 Allowed homonym : Hydra nom. inval. Concise hierarchy (Kingdom) Animalia – (Phylum) Cnidaria – (Class) Hydrozoa – (Order) Anthoathecatae – (Family) Hydridae

ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net › figure › Taxonomy-and… | Taxonomy and anatomy of Hydra spp. (A) A … A longitudinal cross section (inset) shows the two germ layers of Hydra and the most common cell types comprising the same.

Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology

Hydra (genus) Hydra (/ˈhaɪdrə/ HY-drə) is a genus of small freshwater hydrozoans of the phylum Cnidaria. They are solitary, carnivorous jellyfish-like animals,[2] native to the temperate and tropical regions.[3][4] The genus was named by Linnaeus in 1758 after the Hydra, which was the many-headed beast of myth defeated by Heracles, as when the animal has a part severed, it will regenerate much like the mythical hydra’s heads. Biologists are especially interested in Hydra because of their regenerative ability; they do not appear to die of old age, or to age at all Tissue regeneration Hydras undergo morphallaxis (tissue regeneration) when injured or severed. Typically, Hydras reproduce by just budding off a whole new individual; the bud occurs around two-thirds of the way down the body axis. When a Hydra is cut in half, each half regenerates and forms into a small Hydra; the “head” regenerates a “foot” and the “foot” regenerates a “head”. This regeneration occurs without cell division. If the Hydra is sliced into many segments, the middle slices form both a “head” and a “foot”.[7] The polarity of the regeneration is explained by two pairs of positional value gradients. There is both a head and foot activation and inhibition gradient. The head activation and inhibition works in an opposite direction of the pair of foot gradients.[23] The evidence for these gradients was shown in the early 1900s with grafting experiments. The inhibitors for both gradients have shown to be important to block the bud formation. The location where the bud forms is where the gradients are low for both the head and foot.[7] Hydras are capable of regenerating from pieces of tissue from the body and additionally after tissue dissociation from reaggregates.[23] This process takes place not only in the pieces of tissue excised from the body column, but also from re-aggregates of dissociated single cells. It was found that in these aggregates, cells initially distributed randomly undergo sorting and form two epithelial cell layers, in which the endodermal epithelial cells play more active roles in the process. Active mobility of these endodermal epithelial cells forms two layers in both the re-aggregate and the re-generating tip of the excised tissue. As these two layers are established, a patterning process takes place to form heads and feet.[24] DNA repair Hydra are capable of two types of DNA repair: nucleotide excision repair and base excision repair.[28] The repair pathways facilitate DNA replication by removing DNA damage. Their identification in hydra was based, in part, on the presence in its genome of genes homologous to ones present in other genetically well studied species playing key roles in these DNA repair pathways.[28] CAN YOU SAY, “INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS?” October 7, 2021 by Cynthia UPDATE: 10/11/2021; 10:34:18 PM “Science” really serves Satan.  They are seeking to create eternal life for humanity without GOD.  Satan has always wanted to be GOD.  Everything he does is to kill, steal and destroy.  That is what the Bible tells us.  He wants to USURP GOD.  To become GOD, and rule everything, to reshape … Click Here to Read More

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To step across another hundred years towards 1650 is to expérience in a différent era the full vigour of scientific discovery and discussion. Charters were granted to the Royal Society in 1662 and to the French Académie des Sciences in 1666. The giants on whose shoulders we stand include Newton, Boyle, Hooke, Malpighi, Haies and many others whose achievements still influence today’s young scientist. By 1650 entrainment in Latin and Greek scholarship had become less germane to science and thus from the beginning, the Royal Society of London’s Transactions, for example, were published in English.

The records of yet earlier authors in the sixteenth century are of significant interest here as will be seen. Works on natural history, whether erudite compilations (e.g. Gesner 1555, Aldrovandi 1603) or new (Belon 1555) provided detailed reviews of ancient literature, both Greek and Latin. Scholars of ail persuasions used Latin themselves and were steeped in Homer and Ovid and so familiar with classical mythology.

The subject of this narrative are the soft corals représentée! by Alcyonium digitatum (L.), a British coastal species commonly known as dead man’s fïngers. It is in the family Alcyonaceae, order Alcyonacea, subclass Alcyonaria (Hickson 1930) otherwise Octocorallia (Manuel 1981, Fabricius & Alderslade 2001).

The source of the name Alcyonium is the Greek myth of Ceyx and Alcyone, which gave rise also to the metaphor “halcyon days”. Ovid’s well known version of the myth is the best introduction to other sources (e.g. Graves 1992, Forey 2002).

Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus god of the winds and of Anarete was the wife of Ceyx, son of Lucifer. They were king and queen of Trachis. Ceyx and Alcyone found perfect happiness together but tragedy befell them. Ceyx decided to consult an oracle and despite Alcyone’s pleadings, he set sail, promising to return. His ship was wrecked in a storm and Ceyx was drowned. Alcyone, anxious with waiting, prayed for his safe return until Juno, weary of pétitions, sent her messenger to the god of sleep, who dispatched Morpheus to appear in the form of Ceyx in Alcyone’s dream. Alcyone sees her drowned husband only too clearly and awakes in anguish, crying out and too distraught to take comfort. She throws herself into the sea to join him and as she does so she is transformed. Jupiter takes pity on the bereft lovers and Alcyone and Ceyx are turned into halcyon birds.

Halcyons are kingfishers, but to relate the myth as transcribed to détails of the birds known to Aristotle or other ancient observers is not straightforward. One might think of terns or gulls or else gannets but the halcyon had a tapered beak and was brightly coloured, with blue head and back and a reddish breast (Thompson 1895, 1910, Belon 1555: 218). None of the présent species of kingfisher corresponds to halcyons in nesting habits or distribution.

There is more to the myth. Halcyon birds make a nest which floats unharmed upon a tranquil sea for seven days before and seven days after the winter solstice. The winds drop as Aeolus restrains them. The female lays her eggs and broods, the young birds are hatched and they fly away as the calm halcyon days end. Then Aeolus releases the unruly winds. The substance of the nest is uncertain, including sea foam and perhaps fishbones, but carefully fashioned with the beak to be seamless and unbreakable (e.g. Aldrovandi 1603: 497).

Sailors’ legends follow: occasional sightings of “halcyon birds” or calm midwinter spells in the Gulf of Corinth confirm the myth. Halcyon birds in flight are propitious as they bring good weather. A female flying alone is heard to call repeatedly, as if in distress. Maritime legends about halcyons including the médicinal properties of sea foam persist well into the sixteenth century (e.g. Belon 1555: 219).

Ovid’s transcriptions of earlier sources have stood the test of centuries and have influenced almost every Western writer (Hughes 1997: vii). The myth of Ceyx and Alcyone retains ail its vitality. It has inspired poetry, opéra and works of art (Reid 1993). The phrase “halcyon days” is still a literary or political metaphor indicating a fortunate period of untroubled calm (Simpson & Weiner 1989). Halcyon birds have featured in heraldry and also as THE STORY OF ALCYONIUM emblems (Giovio 1574, Scorza 1981). Fig. 1 is a device from Giovio (1562) which shows halcyon birds on their floating nest during the days of calm weather. The rubric and accompanying verse (Mr CG Wagstaff kindly furnished this translation) are innovative: “The halcyon birds know the elected time for the sea not to harm their nests or their eggs. Unhappy the man who knows not how to wait to give effect to his design”. Giovio’s device for the Fieschis refers to their strategy for taking up arms in revenge, which proved successful. It was an âge when both myth and observation were signifïcant. Paulo Giovio (1483-1552) and the naturalist Pierre Belon (1517-1564) were near contemporaries.

The term Alcyonium sprang from the coexistence of myth, legend and reality. Halcyon birds’ nests of sea foam interwoven with fishbones might later reappear among the floating flotsam and jetsam of Mediterranean coasts. Poorly specified objects were called alcyonium or alcyoneum from an219 Distinctions between animais and plants were sharpened by Abraham Trembley’s séminal experiments on freshwater Hydra spp. (Trembley 1744). Thèse were greeted with amazement if not disbelief. That animais which captured prey and walked about could bud, and even regenerate like plants, one type being green besides, caused a great stir, and an upheaval of previously held ideas (e.g. Réaumur 1742, Dawson 1987). Trembley’s beautiful work is still as good as new and marks the rise of expérimental biology (Baker 1952, Lenhoff & Lenhoff 1986, Tardent 1987). Trembley sent hydra to de Réaumur, who in 1741 confirmed his conclusions. It was he who suggested the term “polype” for hydra by analogy with the Polypi (i.e. cephalopods) of ancient authors, whose eight arms capture prey (Réaumur 1742: li-lxxx; Baker 1952). cient times (e.g. Pliny: see Thompson 1895). Light weight or of spongy texture, perhaps compound in origin, they might include soft corals, sponges, ascidians, bryozoans and encrusted algae detached by wave action (e.g. Ellis 1755, Ellis & Solander 1786, Johnston 1838). Some of the sponges referred to as alcyoniums had ancient médical uses, an aspect of sea foam which influenced later halcyon legends (e.g. Thompson 1895, 1947, Belon 1555: 219). By the end of the sixteenth century the misapprehension that the several kinds of alcyonium were halcyons’ nests had faded away.

The soft coral Alcyonium digitatum appears in the lOth édition of Linnaeus’ “Systema Naturae”, the species described as Alcyonium ramosodigitatum molle by John Ellis (1755) and shown in Fig 2. It was well known from flatfish grounds (Ray 1724). English fishermen called it dead man’s hand, or dead man’s toes, or cow-paps (Johnston 1838). The Mediterranean species Alcyonium palmatum (Pallas 1766) was called manus marina (the sea hand) (Gesner 1558:619, Aldrovandi 1606:593). Ancient Greek sponge divers would probably have seen it.

Early in the eighteenth century the boundaries between animais and plants were by no means clear (Robson 1975). In Aristotle’s “Ladder of Nature” animais were higher than plants, and minerais were inanimate. The idea of a zoophyte, in the sensé of an animal with vegetable attributes, began with Aristotle. Later naturalists observed that there were aquatic plants with stony parts (lithophytes). If the natural world showed every aspect of intergradation lithophytes and zoophytes offered catégories which avoided taxonomic boundary problems and were consistent with contemporary outlook. The word “zoophyte” was widely used until the late nineteenth century, by then in a descriptive sensé (Simpson & Weiner 1989).

Linnaeus (1758) placed A. digitatum in his Zoophyta nonetheless. Thèse were composite animais with plant-like stems in which he included sea pens, gorgonians, hydroids and Hydra. He placed corals under Lithophyta. Ray (1724), however, had included Alcyonium digitatum and several lithophytes and zoophytes of Linnaeus (e.g. corals) under aquatic plants (Plantae Submarinae). Ellis (1755) used Ray’s Latin description of A. digitatum. His English rendering for Fig. 2 is “Alcyonium of a soft fleshy Nature, with its Surface full of Stars”. Ellis used low magnification (a microscope by John Cuff with single lenses) to great advantage and he was besides an acute and thoughtful observer. He saw living polyps of hydroids and later those of Alcyonium digitatum (Ellis 1754, 1755, 1763). In the sponge Halichondria panicea, whose texture resembled that of A. digitatum, there were no polyps. Instead, oscula opened and closed and water passed through them (Ellis 1763, 1765). He was in no doubt that ail of thèse spécimens were animal in nature.