in 1834 costa , a professor of zoology embarking on a big study of the rich fauna of the kingdom of naples , reclassified what , from a preserved cornish specimen , the german zoologist peter simon pallas had 60  years before described and depicted as a mollusc . costa placed live animals from posillipo , just north of the city , as relatives of cyclostomes , the jawless hagfish and lampreys , though dissection soon showed that amphioxus deviated more from these than they did from salamanders ( willey 1894 , pp . costa s interest in links between classes and europe - wide discussion as an intermediate form ( de ceglie 1999 , pp . the jena zoologist ernst haeckel , with his anatomist colleague carl gegenbaur , evolutionized the science of form ( nyhart 1995 ; richards 2008 ; hopwood 2015 , pp . haeckel filled the first darwinist system , his generelle morphologie ( general morphology ) , with cosmic ambition , new technical terms , ferocious polemic , bold pedigrees all the way up to human beings and taxonomic revisions which promoted amphioxus to a new subphylum , the acrania or skull - less ones . probably the last mohican  of a once  richly developed and many - branched tree the reference to james fenimore cooper s novel invoked imperialist elegies for the last representatives of lineages , tribes and species ( stafford 1994 , pp . 232260 ; brantlinger 2003 ) , but haeckel in fact picked winners , stressing the nobility of amphioxus as an ancestor of the dominant line and the respect owed to age . the transition from the invertebrates to amphioxus remained mysterious , however ; he adopted a marine roundworm as a hypothetical link , but there was as yet no convincing bridge . from 1868 haeckel s natrliche schpfungsgeschichte ( natural history of creation ) preached this darwinist gospel and , over several decades , a dozen german editions and as many translations took it to the general educated public . lacking fossils , his conjectural pedigrees relied on embryos , via the theory that individual development ( ontogeny ) recapitulates that of the species ( phylogeny ) . still cautious about vertebrate origins in 1866 , haeckel now used kowalevsky s work to argue that an invertebrate like an ascidian larva , itself derived from annelids , had developed in two directions : degenerating into the adult tunicates sitting on the sea floor and progressing to amphioxus and other vertebrates ( haeckel 1868a , pp . , a  popular scientific lecture  proclaimed ,  as that venerable animal which of all still living animals is alone in a position to give us an approximate idea of our oldest silurian ancestors with backbones  ( haeckel 1868b , p. 42 ) . fine schematic plates of ascidians and amphioxus graced the second edition of the schpfungsgeschichte , bridging a  deep gulf  and allowing haeckel to trace humans back to worms ( fig .  1 ) . speculative philosophers  to stop  building futile castles in the air  and think about these facts instead ( haeckel 1870 , p. 673 ) . liberals cared only how far a person had come and could go  but the specificity and degree of consensus were new.fig . 1plates of the embryology and anatomy of ascidian ( a ) and amphioxus ( b ) in the second edition of haeckel s natrliche schpfungsgeschichte to show the , plate x represents the ontogeny in five stages from eggs to larvae , and plate xi the adults with the internal organization visible through the transparent skin . copper engravings with blue wash by wilhelm wagenschieber from haeckel ( 1870 , plates x 21    26  cm plates of the embryology and anatomy of ascidian ( a ) and amphioxus ( b ) in the second edition of haeckel s natrliche schpfungsgeschichte to show the  blood relationship of vertebrates and invertebrates  . simplified after kowalevsky , plate x represents the ontogeny in five stages from eggs to larvae , and plate xi the adults with the internal organization visible through the transparent skin . copper engravings with blue wash by wilhelm wagenschieber from haeckel ( 1870 , plates x 21    26  cm haeckel s pedigrees stirred up trouble from the start , but editors , journalists and general readers entrenched the schpfungsgeschichte in the optimistic , nationalist , anticlerical  culture of progress of the new german empire and took these ancestors into middle - class homes.4 then , in 1874 , haeckel came out with the anthropogenie ( translated as the evolution of man ) , a major statement of the relations between ontogeny and phylogeny and a salvo in the kulturkampf , chancellor bismarck s anti - catholic campaign ( haeckel 1874 , pp . xi  xvi ) . joining the nationalist monument - building ( belgum 1998 , pp . 5972 ) , the book proudly traced humanity back to amoeba , amphioxus , axolotl , australian lungfish and ape ( hopwood 2015 , pp . ignorant theologians  and  anthropocentric  philosophers objected that his attitude towards amphioxus had  ridden roughshod over  the dignity of humanity and most grievously insulted the divine human sense of reason  . but , he insisted , the  thousand - year - old oak wood  it seemed natural to respect was as nothing compared to this little fish . , this  flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood  still deserved more admiration and reverence  than all the useless rabble of so - called saints to whom our  highly civilized nations build temples and dedicate processions  ( haeckel 1874 , pp . haeckel deployed fresh empirical research and his own new argument that all true animals descended from a swimming stomach , or gastraea , to strengthen and expand his coverage of the ascidian he mobilized these animals as secular icons and in a struggle for embryology between phylogeny and physiology that politicized species choice ( hopwood 2011 , p. 5 ) . one look at amphioxus development , he declared , and the chick - based theory of his rival , wilhelm his ,  collapses like a house of cards  ( haeckel 1874 , p. 629 ; also 1875 , p. 23 ) . graduates of the classical grammar schools ( haeckel 1874 , p. xi ) , the anthropogenie disappointed high expectations of a good read , but many learned the arguments at second hand ( hopwood 2015 , pp . 127134 ) . the liberal publicity machine announced the book with a review in the illustrirte zeitung ( illustrated news ) that told progressives to study comparative embryology . large wood engravings presented amphioxus and ascidians as  primordial ancestors of the tribe of backboned animals 2).5die gartenlaube ( the bower ) , the family magazine with the huge run of nearly 400,000 , also stressed their significance as a bridge . without the  little lancet fish we would barely know we came from worms , a  kinship certainly more congenial to the christian feeling of humility than descent from the apes.6 but the anthropogenie did not just give journalists material ; it also goaded experts into warning the public ( hopwood 2015 , pp . 119126 , 132134).fig . these wood engravings in otto zacharias s review of haeckel s anthropogenie are cruder than the original plates but reached more people . the magazine omitted cross - sections and a lamprey larva that haeckel had added to present his more developed theory in the more specialized book . these wood engravings in otto zacharias s review of haeckel s anthropogenie are cruder than the original plates but reached more people . the magazine omitted cross - sections and a lamprey larva that haeckel had added to present his more developed theory in the more specialized book . niederschsische staats- und universittsbibliothek gttingen haeckel basked in adulation , but his polarizing rhetoric also provoked howls of opposition from scientists as well as philosophers and theologians . a disciplinary enemy , the physiologist emil du bois - reymond , had already attacked his overstepping of the bounds of natural knowledge ( bayertz et al . even fellow zoologists , most of whom by now accepted the fact of evolution , worried about the dogmatic presentation of personal speculations , exaggeration of his own novelty and intolerance towards other researchers views . few darwinists endorsed every detail of his pedigrees and many objected to his gastraea theory ( nyhart 1995 , pp . 168206 ) . yet haeckel s advocacy and darwin s endorsement had established the lancelet as the primordial vertebrate and built momentum behind the more controversial ascidian theory , but from 1875 other darwinist theories began to compete ( beeson 1978).7 from naples , anton dohrn urged followers of haeckel and gegenbaur to pay living conditions more attention . then they would see that ascidians and amphioxus merely continued the degeneration that the parasitic cyclostomes had begun . reduced to filtering food from sandy water , amphioxus represented  a degenerate fish  , and the ascidians had declined even more ( dohrn 1875 , p. 55 ; ghiselin 1994 , p. 63 ) . for the wrzburg zoologist and authority on sea cucumbers carl semper , the other main advocate of the annelid theory , amphioxus was also no vertebrate ( semper 1875 , p. 66 ; 1876a ) . this comment in semper s institute journal gained currency when the veteran materialist and early darwinist carl vogt deployed it in the liberal frankfurter zeitung to dismiss haeckel s  mythical  pedigrees , and anti - darwinists picked it up.8 few were in any position to adjudicate , but expert disagreement made the choices look arbitrary and helped those who rejected pedigrees out of hand . haeckel defended himself , in a small section of a long polemic , by pretending that for consistency dohrn would have to make the whole animal kingdom degenerate from the  sinless  adam until the  unfortunate amphioxus , which had burdened itself with the most serious guilt , finally lost even its head as religious and political protests rained down on haeckel , and the press amplified colleagues censure of everything from pictures of embryos to speculations about cellular souls , objections to amphioxus as ancestor were still easily overlooked . for spokesmen of science the bigger issue was the threat from his behaviour to their freedom in the new state . in early 1876 semper publicly targeted haeckelism for falling into the same credulous dogmatism that its author repudiated in the churches , and so risking the status that darwinism had brought zoology , but he mentioned amphioxus only in a note ( semper 1876b , p. 35 ) . haeckel s reputation would never recover fully from these battles , but most competent researchers still credited him for pushing the theory of evolution through . as tempers frayed , humour , which had so far figured mostly in sarcasm between haeckel and his critics , appeared as mediator . rhymes went some way towards defusing a tense situation by separating haeckel s excesses from commitments on which evolutionists just might agree . nature researchers in the german lands had long sung together to foster ( male ) camaraderie and cultural nationalism , validate specialized knowledge ( jackson 2003 ) , and share the fun in songs such as joseph victor scheffel s mock - tragic lament by the last ichthyosaur . a commission from the bern scientific society spurred the newspaper editor moritz reymond to write humorous verses on intellectual fashions such as the kulturkampf and medical advice , and haeckelism became his greatest theme.9 with a title referring to catholic books of daily prayers and the like for non - priests , and a focus on the old testament , das neue laienbrevier des haeckelismus ( the new lay breviary of haeckelism ) eventually ran to five books with cartoons by fritz steub of the fliegende bltter , the bavarian punch . reymond prepared genesis , oder die entwickelung des menschengeschlechts ( genesis , or the development of the human race ) for christmas 1876 . shrinking the octavo lectures of the anthropogenie chapter by chapter to a sexto - decimo of songs painlessly acquainted readers with the positive and negative sides of the original . engaging with its reception too , the satire played on the symmetry between haeckel s charges of ignorance and the exclusivity of his own neologisms , on the one hand , and the irony of his condemning church dogma while setting himself up as the  apostle of a new faith reymond tackled the pedigrees at length , but left the hypothesis of amphioxus as ancestor unchallenged ; the consensus was too strong and dissent not yet prominent enough . two songs reviewed the discoveries that had revealed respectively the structure of amphioxus and ascidians and their embryology and thematized the german tradition of finding origins in and around the mediterranean . the first , to a folk tune previously used for a student song about diogenes the cynic and alexander the great , corresponded to chapter 13 of the anthropogenie and tells how zoologists lancets raised the status of the lancelet ( reymond 1877 , pp . a series of encounters with costa , kowalevsky and haeckel , the extent of whose hands - on research is exaggerated , prove fatal for the individual animals . invoking pallas fails to stop costa testing his hunch ( fig .  3 ) . here is the complete song ,  der krperbau des amphioxus und der ascidie  ( the structure of amphioxus and ascidian ) , with my translation but without the four endnotes that explained the history in quotations from the anthropogenie.fig . the illustration by fritz steub , like the one in fig .  4 , was added in the second and kept in this third edition . border 10.5    8.2  cmein schlpfriges lanzettenthiera lancet fish so slipperylag wohlgemuth i m sandelay cheerfully in the sandund dachte :  ei wie schn ist s hierand thought , oh , is nt it lovelyan posilippos10 strande!here on posillipo s strand!da stieg ein grimmer zoologbut then a zoologist grimempor am horizonte , rose up on the horizon , der alles zu zergliedern pflog , who used to dissect with much vim , was er erwischen konnte.whatever he laid hands on.er sieht das thier und hebt es auf , he sees and snatches the creatureobwol es schneckenglatt ist , though smooth as a snail it be , und sagt :  ich nehme gift darauf , and says :  my own life i d wager , wenn das kein vertebrat ist!but vertebrate that must be!das thierchen seufzt :  ach , gehn sie weg!the animal sighs :  be off , you!das knnt ein jeder sagen!anybody could say that!ich bin ja nur ein nackter schneck  a slug is all i am , it s true  sie knnen pallas fragen!just go and ask pallas that!der zoologe aber sprachthe zoologist however spakezum groen schreck des findlings : to great terror in his find:der weise mann sieht selber nachthe wise man must his own look takeund glaubt nicht andern blindlings!and does nt trust others blind!drauf schob die pseudoschnecke erwith that the pseudo - snail he tuckedgefhllos in die tasche , callously in his pocket , zerschnitt und setzt sie hinterhercut it to bits and these then dunkedin eine weingeistflasche.in a bottle of spirit.dies kam , wie sehr auch paradoxhowever great a paradoxes scheint , dem thier zu statten;this seems , the beast uprated;denn seither zhlt der amphioxfor since that day ranks amphioxzur crme der vertebraten.as crme of the vertebrated.und wieder schwamm i m mittelmeeragain a zoologicalein zoolog spazieren , went for a swim in the med , wo die ascidien stationrwhere ascidians staticalam grunde vegetiren.vegetate on the seabed.mit einem schleppnetz und bedachtwith drag - net , care and attentionhat er an jenem ortehe in that same place did bringso manches stck zu tag gebrachtto light a splendid selectionvon dieser wrmersorte.of this type of wormy thing.es barg der cellulose - schlauchthe cellulose tunic it helddie wunderlichen altenthe wondrous adults matureund gleich die lieben kleinen auchand the dear babies also dwelledin der cloake falten.in cloacal folds secure.sie kamen unter s mikroskop , they came under the microscope , sie kamen unter s messer;they came under the cutter;sie starben sich zu tod darob ein wunder hatte dafor see ! a miracle had thereenthllt mit einem mal sich : revealed itself once for all : die larve der ascidiathe larva of ascidiaerwies als vertebral sich!turned out to be vertebral!der hckel hrt s von ungefhrhaeckel heard , by chance twas really , und schnrte gleich den ranzenand packed his bags right awayund ging an s mittellndsche meerand went down to the middle seadrei monat in vakanzen.for three months of holiday.es forscht der groe zoologthat zoologist searched the groundvon frh bis abends spt hierfrom early till evening lateund fand , wie sehr doch analogand most analogous he foundascidie und lanzett-thier.ascidian and lance-let.was ihm gemangelt bis anhinwhat till then he had been lackingin seiner ahnenreihe , in his ancestral series , das bindeglied nach unten hin  the downwards link a - connecting das waren diese zweie!that was this pair of beasties!nun war die lcke ausgefllt , now the gap it was nicely healed , die reihe schn geschlossen , the series well closed henceforth , und das geheimni uns enthllt , and the secret to us revealed , wie wir dem wurm entsprossen!how from the worm we sprang forth!ascidie und amphiox , ascidian and amphiox , ein glas zu eurem ruhme!let s raise a glass to your fame!den wurzeln unsers ahnenstocksthe stem of our ancestral stocksbring jeder seine the illustration by fritz steub , like the one in fig .  4 , was added in the second and kept in this third edition . border 10.5    8.2  cm listeners were invited to drink to their newest - oldest ancestors . the next chapter , and so the next song , was about the embryology  presented through a chance meeting over a beer between kowalevsky and  brother straubinger  , a travelling journeyman whose literary career had begun in the drinking song of a bavarian medical student some 50  years before ( reymond 1877 , pp . there is space here only for a selection of verses in which straubinger recounts what happened after the st . kowalevsky , whose report described amphioxus as starting to mate on warm may evenings between seven and eight , asks his acquaintance to appear on the beach  behind vesuvius  ,  sober  and at half past seven precisely ( fig . 4alexander kowalevsky and brother straubinger watching amphioxus mating in naples . by fritz steub , from reymond ( 1878 , p. 113)der professor wohlgeartetthe professor , good - humouredly , hat mich dort bereits erwartet , was there and waiting already , winkte mir und ruf : waved and gave a shout : passen sie man uf  hallo , mate , look out  allsogleich wird der schwindel losgehen!the show is going to start any minute now!als wir drauf zusammenrucktenwhen we moved closer , he and me , und in s meer hinunterguckten , and looked down , down into the sea , schwamm ein amphiuxan amphux swimmerum die ecke flugssped round the cornerund lie in gedanken etwas in s wasser fallen.and , in thought immersed , let something fall into the water.alldieweil traf unterwegs ihnwherepon an amphoxy ladydie madame amphixin;meeting him en route , silentlydachte sich :  oho , thought to self :  wahey , steht die sache so?are things now that way?und deponirte selbigenorts diverse amphioxeneier.and deposited various amphioxus eggs in the very same place.diese amphioxigen eierthese eggs so amphioxicalintressirten ungeheuerappeared of interest colossalkowalewsken , derto kowalevsky , alsbald hinterherwho now directlyin s meer sprang und dieselben mit nach hause nahm.jumped into the sea and took the same home with him . alexander kowalevsky and brother straubinger watching amphioxus mating in naples . by fritz steub , from reymond ( 1878 , p. 113 ) straubinger goes back to the russian s lodgings and they watch the amphioxus develop.dorten konnten wir betrachten , there we could contemplate steadywie bereits um mitternachtenhow around midnight alreadyaus den eiern zartthose eggs so tendereine blase ward , became a bladderwelche kowalewsky das blastodermichen nannte.which kowalevsky called the blastodermlet . the uneducated artisan , who symbolized conflict with the academic world , has difficulty with  the damned latin names  . reymond thus both followed haeckel and his readers in thematizing the difficulty of the esoteric science , and borrowed straubinger s idiom to communicate some embryology : doch i m weiteren entwickelnyet as it develops quicklysprt die larve nun ein prickeln , the larva now feels all tinglyrcken auf und ab , up and down its bodund ein axenstaband an axis rodwchst ihr bratspieartig mitten durch s gedrm.grows right through its intestines like a skewer . working up an appetite , straubinger would not have minded hearing more over some spare ribs ,  because you do nt never know what education will be good for  , but kowalevsky sends him away hungry . a catholic reviewer was pleased to see darwinism s true colors exposed , and for an editor of the leading anti - darwinist science magazine  this food for the mind  complemented the christmas sweetness as perfectly as  herring salad with spanish pepper  a stomach upset by marzipan.11 others saw reymond as helping haeckel , who was rumoured to have kept a copy in his jacket pocket ( may 1909 , p. 116 ) , even though many verses cut nearer the bone than those about amphioxus . in jena zoology practical.12 english - speakers familiar with haeckel s books , and the debates over them , enjoyed reymond s verses too . in 1878 the british - born , gttingen - educated toronto palaeontologist and poet edward john chapman translated the first amphioxus song . his biologist colleague robert ramsay wright had paid this animal much attention when reviewing the anthropogenie for the local scientific society , the canadian institute . like most professors , he found the book  admirably lucid  while regretting the  assertive tone  , dogmatism  and  cavalier treatment  of opponents ( wright 1876 ) . under the pseudonym dr . agorastes (  marketeer  ) , perhaps taken from lucian s sale of philosophies , chapman dedicated his translation to wright and the institute.13 but amphioxus and ascidian , our gelatinous ancestors  imitated  as much as it translated ; compare what follows with my more literal rendition above . chapman added information , colour and drama , accommodated with an extra line in each of three fewer verses , as he turned a drinking song into a lyric poem , a pictureless  piece of jocose rhyming  in the style of samuel taylor coleridge , to be declaimed more than sung.14a slimy lancelet once lay  half - hidden in the golden sandof naples blue and balmy bay  and thought  how pleasant , here , to - day  is posilippo s strand.but on the horizon s shadowy brim  a horrid vision doth arise  a spectacled professor grim!all things that creep , crawl , fly , or swim ,  must he anatomize!a  find  his eager senses he sees : with joy elatehe grasps the creature in a jiff  and cries  now , i ll be jiggered if  it is nt vertebrate!the victim groandcome , that s too pale  do nt try on me that precious cram  limpid and soft from top to tail , im nothing but a naked snail  ask pallas what i am!the horrid  zoo  made answer ,  nay !  i mean , my dear , myself to  fix it : no wise man trusts what others say , or heeds , in this far - searching day ,  the dead past s ipse dixit!so saying , without more ado ,  ( to tender feeling sadly callous)he slit poor slimy through and through , and bottled  as he d bottle you  this pseudo - snail of pallas!and thus , although the little nata-  torial beast has no backbone , for reasons based on larval datait came among the vertebrata  a place , at last , to own!pass thirty years and two  ah me ! how quick time gallops!then there camea learned russ to that blue sea  to fish for tunicates came he ,  also to fish for fame!and so before his zeal should flag ,  or fall below its high meridian15to work he went with dredge and drag , and fished up quite a thumping bag  of things ascidian!and then came out the startling truth  let all the world s four corners hear it!the ascidian in its frisky youthis half a vertebrate , in sooth ,  or something somewhere near it!swift sped the news oer land and sea ,  till reaching haeckel s ears  that greatstem - framer  in vacation free packd up , and went post - haste to see  this yea - nay vertebrate!and there , our great ontogenist  whose word bewitches whilst it shocks us beheld the links his system missd : yes , here they were  or he d be hissd  ascidian amphioxus!all things are sure to one who waits :  and here the links at last were seenmade manifest to meanest pates invertebrated vertebrates  fishes and worms between!thus , haeckelism s wondrous gleam  makes clear , to all , how all arose  backward and forward went the streamof shifting forms , like shapes of dream ,  and found in us its close!chapman thus replaced the toast with a romantic scene that perhaps foresaw endless revision to the pedigree . a slimy lancelet once lay  half - hidden in the golden sand of naples blue and balmy bay and thought  how pleasant , here , to - day  is posilippo s strand . but on the horizon s shadowy brim  a horrid vision doth arise a spectacled professor grim ! all things that creep , crawl , fly , or swim , a  find  his eager senses he sees : with joy elate he grasps the creature in a jiff and cries  now , i ll be jiggered if  it is nt vertebrate ! the victim groandcome , that s too pale  do nt try on me that precious cram limpid and soft from top to tail , i m nothing but a naked snail  ask pallas what i am !  the horrid  zoo  made answer , i mean , my dear , myself to  fix it : no wise man trusts what others say , or heeds , in this far - searching day ,  the dead past s ipse dixit !  so saying , without more ado ,  ( to tender feeling sadly callous ) he slit poor slimy through and through , and bottled  as he d bottle you  this pseudo - snail of pallas ! and thus , although the little nata-  torial beast has no backbone , for reasons based on larval data it came among the vertebrata  a place , at last , to own ! how quick time gallops!then there came a learned russ to that blue sea to fish for tunicates came he ,  also to fish for fame ! and so before his zeal should flag ,  or fall below its high meridian15 to work he went with dredge and drag , and fished up quite a thumping bag  of things ascidian ! and then came out the startling truth  let all the world s four corners hear it ! the ascidian in its frisky youth is half a vertebrate , in sooth ,  or something somewhere near it ! swift sped the news oer land and sea ,  till reaching haeckel s ears  that great stem - framer  in vacation free packd up , and went post - haste to see  this yea - nay vertebrate ! and there , our great ontogenist  whose word bewitches whilst it shocks us beheld the links his system missd : yes , here they were  or he d be hissd  ascidian all things are sure to one who waits :  and here the links at last were seen made manifest to meanest pates invertebrated vertebrates  fishes and worms between ! thus , haeckelism s wondrous gleam  makes clear , to all , how all arose backward and forward went the stream of shifting forms , like shapes of dream ,  and found in us its close ! meanwhile , the german controversy over haeckel raged on . in the neue freie presse ( new free press ) of vienna vogt analysed haeckel s metamorphosis from  apostle  through  prophet  to  oracle  . gravest sin  that he had denied human kinship with ascidians and amphioxus and lampooned haeckel s  enthusiastic exaggeration  . he now protested against even more extreme  hyperbolicization  by exclaiming with reference to the demand of the austrian tyrant defied by the swiss patriot wilhelm tell :  how long will it be before we have an edict that we must doff our hats to a jar of amphioxus , like in front of geler s pole with a hat on top ! s verses , which developed this criticism , not long . following the second book of the breviary , the more critical exodus , a new instalment containing books three to five , leviticus these still poked fun at the pedigrees , and now also satirized the latest debates by imagining the establishment of haeckelism as the state religion and haeckel s installation as high priest of an amphioxus cult . leviticus , or  the law for the prophets of the gospel of development  , opened with steub s sketch of a kneeling haeckel ( fig .  5 ) and this verse ( reymond 1880a , pp . 34):fig . 5the cult of amphioxus in moritz reymond s leviticus : the high priest haeckel kneels as he gives instructions on bringing offerings . border 10.5    8.2  cmwer staunte nicht das edle wesenwho would nt marvel with reverence , voll ehrfurcht und verwundrung an , full of admiration most bolddurch das die wissenschaft genesenfor the noble one which freed sciencevom alten blinden schpfungswahn?from blind creationism old?das unsers menschenstammbaums lckethat golden bridge of discoverymit seiner herrlichkeit erfllt , which with glory magnificentals goldene erkenntnisbrckefills a great gap in man s pedigree , uns den entwicklungsplan enthllt?!and reveals our development ? ! the cult of amphioxus in moritz reymond s leviticus : the high priest haeckel kneels as he gives instructions on bringing offerings . border 10.5    8.2  cm the singer argued that if psalms must be sung , then to this little fish ; if offerings made , then to the first animal ever to develop vertebrae , a  headless - unconscious great deed of development  by the  ancestor and creator  of human beings . haeckel was presented as tempted to do away with some senior professors  he disliked he maintained to the end , for example , the place of ascidians in the human stem - tree . if , when ordaining the darwinist priests , reymond s haeckel detected any concession to creationism and teleology or scepticism towards recapitulation , he felled them with a lightning bolt and finished them off with his pamphlet on freedom in science and learning slaughtered the traitors abihu , that is the left - liberal pathologist rudolf virchow , who had opposed the teaching of evolution in the schools , and nadab , alias reymond ( 1880a , pp . peace came when , like yahweh quashing the rebellion of the tribes of israel by causing aaron s rod to bud , darwin ended his followers rivalry by keeping evergreen only haeckel s tree of gastrae , amphiox and ape.16 reymond parodied haeckel s cult , but reflected the consensus on the ancestral status of amphioxus.fig . du bois - reymond had declared  ignorabimus  ( we shall not know ) : scientists would never solve certain riddles . ( let us exercise restraint ) , as haeckel put it  in order not to turn people against science . by fritz steub , from reymond ( 1880a , p. 18 )  nadab - ignorabimus and abihu - restringamur killed by fire du bois - reymond had declared  ignorabimus  ( we shall not know ) : scientists would never solve certain riddles . ( let us exercise restraint ) , as haeckel put it  in order not to turn people against science . having subsided in the 1880s , darwinist debate revived in the following decade . from 1899 haeckel s bestselling anticlerical synthesis die weltrthsel , translated as the riddle of the universe , expanded the audience for science , took him to dizzying heights of international notoriety and fame , and created a market for a fresh english translation of the evolution of man ( hopwood 2015 , p. 167 ) . new readers also discovered the laienbrevier , including in the us ( kellogg 1908 ) . according to an  anniversary edition , haeckel recommended it to students too busy drinking and fencing for lectures ( reymond 1912 , p. 251 ) . after man the most important and interesting of all vertebrate animals  , a claim his translator exaggerated by omitting the  vertebrate  ( haeckel 1903 , ii , p. 441 ; haeckel 1905 , ii , p. 419 ; see also haeckel 1874 , p. 298 ; haeckel 1899 , p. 69 ) . even as speculation about ancestors was going out of fashion , many biologists agreed on the merits of  [ t]his exquisite form  ( h. f. osborn in willey 1894 , p. ix ) . encyclopaedias acknowledged that some scientists put the  stem - father of all vertebrates  in a degenerate line ( meyers groes konversations - lexikon1905 , pp . 454455 ) . yet as research on amphioxus produced a huge volume of articles , books and models ( e.g. , hatschek 1881 ; willey 1894 ; hopwood 2002 , pp . 3435 , 101 , 146 ) , it thrived as ( a relative of ) an ancestor and for other reasons too . accessible on various coasts , if hard to culture , it featured prominently in surveys ( balfour 1881 , pp . because  all the fundamental structures of the body are laid down with schematic clearness  , it provided an  unrivalled  introduction to embryology and  a refuge to the perplexed embryologist , produced in and for biological summer schools in the interwar us , rejoices in this classroom staple : a fish - like thing appeared among the annelids one day;it had nt any parapods or setae to display.it had nt any eyes or jaws or ventral nervous cord , but it had a lot of gill slits and it had a notochord.chorus:its a long way from amphioxus , it s a long way to us.it was a long way from the german tradition and reymond s haeckelism to these more technical , less historical verses . but laughter over haeckel s cult still echoes in biologists amused pride in an animal which , for all his efforts , never quite became a household deity or even a household word.17 a fish - like thing appeared among the annelids one day ; it had nt any parapods or setae to display . it had nt any eyes or jaws or ventral nervous cord , but it had a lot of gill slits and it had a notochord . it s a long way from amphioxus , it s a long way to us . this look at the public life of amphioxus in its early years of fame has sought , on the one hand , to do more justice to its dominance than accounts that have dwelled on controversy over the ascidian theory and then the diverse challenges to what long remained the dominant view . it has contributed , on the other , to appreciation of the aesthetic dimensions of darwinism and of species choice . running through some of the fiercest battles in the history of science are smiles at haeckel s excesses easing acceptance that he spoke a core of truth , ancestor - worship that self - consciously imitated a religious cult , and affection for naples as the site of discoveries that revealed ancient history along the mediterranean shore .
biologists having rediscovered amphioxus , also known as the lancelet or branchiostoma , it is time to reassess its place in early darwinist debates over vertebrate origins . while the advent of the ascidian  amphioxus theory and challenges from various competitors have been documented , this article offers a richer account of the public appeal of amphioxus as a primitive ancestor . 
 the focus is on how the 
 german darwin ernst haeckel persuaded general magazine and newspaper readers to revere this  flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood  , and especially on das neue laienbrevier des haeckelismus ( the new lay breviary of haeckelism ) by moritz reymond with cartoons by fritz steub . from the late 1870s these successful little books of verse introduced the neapolitan discoveries that made the animal s name and satirized haeckel s rise as high priest of its cult . 
 one song is reproduced and translated here , with a contemporary  imitation  by the canadian palaeontologist edward john chapman , and extracts from others . 
 predating the american  it s a long way from amphioxus  by decades , these rhymes dramatize neglected  species politics of darwinism and highlight the roles of humour in negotiating evolution .