Myxozoa in Haeckels Shadow

Abstract

The “new” Cnidaria incorporating oligocellular myxozoans with multicellular cnidarians flouts Ernst Haeckel’s biogenetic law and challenges contemporary hierarchical preconceptions of evolution, development, and biological structure. Instead of distorting definitions of embryos, tissues, and organs in order to bring once - unicellular eukaryotes under the aegis of Eumetazoa, current molecular, structural, and developmental data should be incorporated into proposals for new evolutionary mechanisms, such as the symbiogeny hypothesis.