The Precambrian Song!

Post of the Month: April 2006

by

Subject:    The Precambrian Song
Date:       28 April 2006
Message-ID: 1146231553.998223.158910@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com

Come gather Poriferans
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that someday
Your kids will have bone.
If your genes to you
are worth savin'
Then you better start evolvin'
before you turn into stone
For the species, they are a-changin'.

Come jellies and polyps
Who live in the sea
And keep your pores open
And broadcast with glee
But don't peak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Can never, e'er win
For the species they are a-changin'.

Come lampshell and ragworm
And leeches and snail!
Just run with the Red Queen
Don't stop on the trail!
For he that's extinct
Will be he who did stall
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll rattle your symbionts
And shake some cell walls
For the species, they are a-changin'.

With jointed appendage
and coelom and jaw
With gut tube and anus
and a true blastopore
Metazoans are rising
from the deep ocean floor
Your telomeres're
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new niche
If you can't form a hand
For the species they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
Now you're just a cast
Slow genetic drift now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
Your Orders are
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the species, they are a-changin'.

(Thanks, Bob)

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