I have always been fascinated with the concept of zoophytic symbiosis, the merging of Plantae and Animalia into a functionally single organism (like lichens, but with animals). The closest real-world analogues are certian sea slugs, which ‘steal’ chloroplasts and embed them in their own skin, or some hydras, which have green algae growing inside them. But what about a vertebrate and a flowering plant?
Heres an example: the barometz, or vegetable lamb of Tartary (my own art):
What is the scientific plausibility of such a thing? Keep in mind this is not about whether this would ‘evolve’- just whether it could even work. The biggest problem I see is fluid transport, as plants do it passively via transperation while vertebrates do it actively via the heart; there would need to be some sort of barrier (like the blood-brain barrier, maybe?).
on a side note, I call the sheep Ovherba barometz and the plant Herbovis barometz. Does anyone know or have made up any other zoophytes?
They are by no means a single organism but I know of an animal-plant relationship that feels mutualistic and so maybe a bit virtually so?
There is a type of dramatically thorned plant native to here, called subin in maya (Vachellia collinsii). I automatically hesitate when I see one, not only because it looks intimidating, especially in dry season, but also because Pseudomymex ants live in them and protect them. There are holes at the edges of the thorns, which are the openings for the colonies, and if you disturb the subin, the ants will rush out en masse. (If they deem the offender a threat to the subin, they will bite, I have heard. Rushing masses of ants is enough of a deterrent for me, though.)
The ants feed on nectar and Beltian bodies the subin provides.
Since the lamb is attached to the plant by it’s umbilical cord, I can only assume that the plant would be acting like a placenta, which transfers nutrients and oxygen from the mother’s blood to the fetus without actually mixing their blood. I think that solves the vascular circulation question
I believe the Lamb of Tartary legend began when cotton first appeared in Europe after it was traded from the Middle East. People thought it resembled wool but knew it came from a plant. Medieval artist drew pictures a
There is quite a variety of mutualistic interactions between plants and ant, with an associated vocabulary. (I’ve just added myrmecotroph and myrmecodomatium to my vocabulary.)
Oh, this I know and have observed in my own garden, but subins are the only plant I know of that ants reside inside of. The others I have only seen them on.
Caveat is that I do not know much. But I was just offering it up as something that came to mind, not as the answer.
edit to add: I don’t recognize your name, so I think welcome to the forums? :) (Sorry if you have been active and I have just missed it. A lot escapes me, hahaha.)
I think the big bottleneck in this regard is that plants do photosynthesize, but it’s really not enough to power an animal metabolism, so we don’t tend to find animals that move around a lot and are directly plant-powered. All the mutualisms I can think of are nutritional: where the plants are nourished by waste from the animal and in exchange provide housing for the animal. Or the animal defends the plants in exchange for food.
Indeed–if you look at the artwork in the initial post, it appeared to me that the animal was hooked up to the plant just as a vacuum cleaner or refrigerator is hooked up to a power outlet :)
i dont know of a symbiosis between animals and plants as exceptionally intimate as that of lichens, but for example Lamiums have flowers shaped specifically so they get visited almost only by bumblebees and their seeds have a little “Elaiosome” I think it was called that ants love to eat and thus ants drastically help some species spread, and its been more than once that I saw a lot of ants living right under certain Lamium plants. Also I know you specifically mentioned vertebrates, but I don’t see the purpose, or rather I wouldn’t restrict the question like this. In the end, flowers and fruit already represent a major symbiosis between plants and animals.
However, the bestiary descriptions have this creature grazing – and in fact dying once it has eaten all the other plants within its reach. So the parent plant does not seem to be able to provide it with sufficient energy or nutrients for survival. Would the herbivory make it similar to the mechanisms used by parasitic plants, I wonder?
