Radiant stars - Naturalist engraving - Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur

Reproduction engraving of: Radiant Stars

Original title Acanthometra - Stachelstrahlinge

Xiphacantha Poster - Vertebrates of the Radiolaria class (Antharian Legion)

Illustration from the book Kunstformen der Natur, which is a collection of artistic lithographs of natural sciences published by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel between 1899 and 1904.

This naturalistic illustration is part of an overall style inspired by Ernst Haeckel, which greatly influenced the emerging Art Nouveau movement at the beginning of the ^20th century. This work, illustrating the impressive beauty and great diversity of the biological world, was complemented by a certain amount of scientific information, some excerpts of which are reproduced below.

This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!

Scientific classification:

 Phylum Protozoa
Main class Rhizopoda (Rhizopoda)
Class Radiolaria (Radiolaria)
Legion of Acantharia (Acantharia)
Order of Acanthometers (Acanthometra)

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the poster print of Acanthometra - Radiant Stars :

The Stacheligen or Acanthometra form a special order within the class Acantharia. These radiolarians live in large numbers floating on the surface of the sea; they are very small, generally visible only under a microscope. Acantharia are distinguished from other radiolarians by their unique and morphologically complex skeletal structure, composed of a very fine and elastic organic substance called mesoglea. The twenty rays that make up this skeleton originate from the center of the unicellular body and are regularly arranged according to a very particular geometric pattern called the Stauraxon system. According to this system, the tips of the twenty radial rays are distributed in five parallel bands that correspond to the equator, the two tropics, and the two polar circles of the planet. The four rays of each band lie in two meridian planes perpendicular to each other. The eight equatorial rays and the four median rays are in these same meridian planes. In contrast, the eight tropical rays are in two other meridian planes located at 45 degrees to the previous ones. The vertical axis of the globe, at the center of which is the winged central capsule (colored yellow here) of the Acantharians, does not contain any rays. The gelatinous envelope (calymma) surrounding the spore-producing central capsule is traversed by thin pseudopodia or prolegs radiating from the latter (Fig. 15). These pseudopodia serve both sensation, movement, capture and digestion of food; they do not radiate uniformly from the internal central capsule (as in the Spumellaria, Table 11), but are regularly arranged in rows between the skeletal rays, the latter serving as propulsion and flotation devices.

Species present on the naturalist board of Radiant Stars - Xiphacantha :

• Xiphacantha ciliata
• Xiphacantha spinulosa
• Stauracantha quadrifurca
• Pristacantha polyodon
• Lithoptera dodecaptera
• Acantholonche peripolaris
• Acantholonche favosa