Riley Thompson describes the unique way that siphonophores grow. Rather than have one body with many specialized parts, they have many bodies that are each specialized for particular tasks. See our post at medium for more information - medium.com/@caseywdunn/how-siphonophores-grow-988614e0f5fd#.w8ewpuie4
This episode of CreatureCast was created by Riley Thompson, based on a script that we wrote together. The animation is based in part on illustrations by Freya Goetz. More animations can be found at creaturecast.org, a project supported in part by the National Science Foundation grant DEB-1256695. Music by Coda.