Word To Use Today: zoon.

A zoon may sound like a race of alien beings with a particularly zippy line in personal aircraft, but...

...well, actually, in a way zoons (or zoa) are exactly that. If on a small scale.

A zoon is a colony of animals which live stuck together, like corals or sea pickles (sea pickles are stuck together with jelly). Siphonophorae are zoons, too, but being colonies of jelly fish they're more or less all jelly.

Here's a young sea pickle:


photo by Nick Hobgood 

some pretty coral:


image by Georgemakar

and a siphonophore:


Photo of Marrus orthocanna by Kevin Raskoff 

Neat, huh?

And now we can all go away and spend at least three minutes wondering about writing an incredible sci-fi story...

Word To Use Today: zoon. Sadly, you say this ZOH-on, not zoooon. It comes from the Greek word zōē, which means life.