ABSTRACT
The discovery of Trichoplax adhaerens: In 1883, the German zoologist Franz Eilhard Schulze published a short communication on the description of a new species, Trichoplax adhaerens (the “sticky hairy plate”; Greek trich=hair, plax=plate); a fl attened, crawling marine animal of up to a few millimeters in size (Schulze 1883). Schulze found these organisms settling on the glass sides of seawater aquaria at the University of Graz (Austria), recognizing their amoeba-like movements and continual shape changes. These were new features for metazoan animals.
