Siphonophores - Scientific Art Reproduction - Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur

Reproduction engraving of: Siphonophores

Original title Siphonophorae - Staatsquallen

Poster of Discolabe - Cnidarians of the class Medusae or Siphonophores (Order Phyllophores)

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This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!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

 Cnidarian Phylum (Cnidaria)
Class Siphonophores (Siphonophorae)
Order Physonectae

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the poster print of Siphonophorae - Siphonophores :

The Physonectes or Physonectes Siphonophores are among the most beautiful and wonderful manifestations of marine life; they resemble floating bouquets of flowers, whose bodies, made of colored glass, are covered with delicate leaves, flowers, and fruits, while being highly sensitive and mobile. From the other orders of siphonophores (Cystonectes on plate 7, Disconectes on plate 17), the Physonectes are distinguished by a more advanced division of labor of the numerous polymorphic individuals that make up the colony, but above all by the simultaneous possession of two types of swimming apparatus, a passive apical swim bladder and numerous actively mobile swimming bells. The species represented belongs to the family Discolabidae; Discolabe is distinguished from the usual Physophora by the fact that the swimming bells are arranged in four longitudinal rows and not in two.

Species present on the Siphonophores - Discolabe naturalist board :

• Discolabe quadrigata