Post #2129798

Japanese Earth science word of the day: 外肛動物 (がいこうどうぶつ - gaikou dobutu) - bryozoa. Bryozoa are tiny marine animals that superficially looks similar to corals, and produce a carbonate skeleton. They are one of the main fossils you will find in carbonate rocks during the past 400 million years. The current term "bryozoa" is derived from Greek roots, where "bryo" means "moss" while "zoa" means "animal". The Japanese term is two words, 外肛, which means "outside anus" and 動物, which means "animal". The Japanese word is a translation of a more accurate name for bryozoa, which is "ectoprocta". The "outside anus" refers to the fact that the anus was located just outside of the lophophore, the tentacles that surround the mouth of the bryozoa. Bryozoa is an older term that originally could also refer to entoprocta, a completely different type of animal, but was not recognized at that time. There were apparently proposals to abandon the term bryozoa, but this was not done because it would make the literature confusing. The Japanese must have coined the term 外肛動物 after it was recognized that ectoprocta and entoprocta were different. #Japan #Geology #Etymology