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IT'S A LONG WAY FROM AMPHIOXUS (Philip H. Pope, 1921) A fishlike thing appeared among the annelids one day It hadn't any parapods or setae to display It hadn't any eyes or jaws or ventral nervous chord But it had a lot of gillslits and it had a notochord. Cho. It's a long way from amphioxus It's a long way to us. It's a long way from amphioxus To the meanest human cuss. So goodbye to fins and gillslits Hello lungs and hair, It's a long, long way from amphioxus But we all came from there. Well, it wasn't much to look at and it scarce knew how to swim And Nerius was very sure it hadn't come from him. The mollusks wouldn't own it and the arthropods got sore So the poor thing had to burrow in the sand along the shore. Cho. It burrowed in the sand before it grabbed in with its tail And said gillslits and myotomes are all to no avail. I've grown some metapleural folds and sport an oral hood But all these fine new characters don't do me any good. Cho. He soaked a while down in the sand without a bit of pep Then he stiffened up his notochord and said: "I'll beat 'em yet." They laugh and show their ignorance, but I don't mind their jeers Just wait until they see me in a hundred million years. Cho. My notochord will stiffen to a chain of vertebrae As fins, my metapleural folds will agitate the sea My tiny dorsal nervous chord will be a mighty brain And vertebrates will dominate the animal domain. Cho. Recorded by Sam Hinton, who says it was written in the 1920s by an author unknown to him. (Philip H. Pope of Cold Spring Harbor in 1921, and published by Woods Hole) @animal @humor @evolution filename[ AMPHIOXU TUNE FILE: TIPRARY CLICK TO PLAY RG |
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