New Zealands's Mysterious Sponge-like Creature

Kryptonomic writes: "New Zealand's marine experts are puzzled by the parasitic sponge-like animal that could threaten NZ's aquaculture industry. Apparently the animal, which so far has not been identified, kills all other sealife by embedding itself on the victim and slowly feeding on it. The parasite also reproduces asexually and could end up dominating the ecological niche it occupies."

Comments

The only way out:

[Anonymous Coward]

Call the mysterious sponge-like creature "zea". Then obviously, "zealand" is the land of zeas. It should be clear in retrospect that it is a stupid place for human settlements.

Re:reproduces asexually

[WolfWithoutAClause]

No, black and green fly, various bacteria and other asexually reproducing organisms have been around far longer than mankind has.

There's pro's and cons to asexual reproduction. On the one hand, you reproduce more quickly (some black fly are even born pregnant!), on the other a disease can swing through and get all of your sibblings because you are genetic clones.

All known organisms except bacteria do both asexual and sexual reproduction. There seems to be limits to how many generations purely asexual reproduction can occur before the damage kills. Not quite sure how bacteria deal with this, but probably their genome is shorter and they have extensive genetic repair mechanisms and possibly use some DNA swapping, plus they reproduce really fast...