Report on the Radiolaria Collected by H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-1876, First Part: Porulosa (Spumellaria and Acantharia) Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-76, Vol. XVIII

"Report on the Radiolaria Collected by H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-76" by Ernst Haeckel is a scientific publication written in the late 19th century. The book presents a detailed examination of Radiolaria, a group of microscopic marine organisms, analyzing their morphology, classification, and ecological significance as revealed through the findings of the H.M.S. Challenger expedition. The opening of this comprehensive report sets the stage for an extensive investigation into Radiolaria, expressing Haeckel's realization of the immense variety and complexity of these organisms over the ten years he devoted to this study. It discusses the methodology employed for collecting and examining samples from deep ocean waters, emphasizing the significance of Radiolaria in understanding oceanic life. Haeckel outlines his initial expectations and acknowledges the challenges he faced, ultimately presenting a thorough account of over 4,300 species and emphasizing the rich variety within Radiolaria, while highlighting the interplay between their life cycles and environmental factors. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms and coined many terms in biology, including ecology, phylum, phylogeny, and Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularised Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the influential but no longer widely held recapitulation theory claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarises its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny.