IT'S A LONG WAY FROM AMPHIOXUS

(Mark Graham)



A fishlike thing appeared among the annelids one day

It hadn't any terrapods or cetae 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

Asterius 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.



Copyright Mark Graham

@animal @humor @evolution

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