Hello Everyone!
In thinking about seeing large systems as interconnected parts functioning together or seeing smaller parts as a larger system, I thought back to the Portuguese Man of War - a type of jellyfish native to Australia and Hawaii though found in many different parts of the world. The Man of War is not a single organism, but is a colony of smaller organisms called zooids which all work together as one unit, which appears like a single animal to us. Here is the wikipedia article; there's a lot of great information on it about this fascinating creature. I also recommend following the the link to the page on zooids and reading more about colonial organisms in nature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man_o%27_War
See you all on Monday!
-J.J.
Nice post. I ended up getting roped in and reading the entire article about the man o' war. That is an awesome example of a biological system and possibly one of the neater animals I have read about.
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