A couple years ago The Science Creative Quarterly started asking for phylogenetic haiku: or poetry of the 5-7-5 form that focused on a specific organism. We actually have hundreds of submissions, but haven’t had a chance to sit down and present them all as a single collection (one day, we’ll get to this, one day).
Anyway, it’s quite striking how in haiku land, it’s the “un-cute” that gets the most representation. This is awesome to me, as usually in the world of media, it’s the cute and cuddly that tends to win the limelight (dolphins, pandas, baby seals, anyone?).
So in an effort to continue this trend, why not an open thread where you have a chance to compose a haiku on an organism you’re pretty sure has never had the privilege of being set to poetry. The goal here, of course, is that if you google your organism’s name as well as the keyword “haiku,” it will be this post that will sit on the number one spot.
Anyway, I’ll start:
Look! Bryozoa!
Like the Borg, but cellular.
Small, strange, and pretty.