The following is simply a statement regarding the authenticity of Agnotozoa. It can no longer be considered a clade or even include the three phyla listed under it because Placozoans are not evolutionarily linked to Mesozoans. Mesozoa as a clade no longer exists anymore because they've shown that there is no link between phyla Orthonectida and Rhombozoa.

A fellow Wikipedia editor, on the Wikipedia discussion page for Agnotozoa discusses:

Agnotozoa doesn't seem to be widely used by biologists today. A search for the name in Biological Abstracts turns up nothing. The term does make a historical appearance, though, in the book Invertebrate Fossils by Moore, Lalicker, & Fisher, 1952. A phylum-level classification on page 17 divides the animals into the subkingdoms Eozoa (protozoans) and Metazoa. The latter is further divided into three "branches": Agnotozoa, Parazoa, and Eumetazoa. Unlike the Wikipedia article, the Agnotozoa of Moore et al. includes only Mesozoa (Orthonectida & Rhombozoa) and makes no mention of Placozoa.

Although there is precedent for the taxon Agnotoza, there seems to be no compelling reason to regard it as a clade, or even a useful grade group. It may make the taxobox more tidy, but that's not reason enough to keep it in an encyclopedia article. I suggest we remove the name from the Animal article, but retain the Agnotozoa article as an example of taxonomic history.

Cephal-odd 23:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


I agree with this user and I believe that the taxonomy should be reviewed and change accordingly to the current systematics of the early Metazoans. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Elvishfolk (talkcontribs) 16:58, 2007-08-27.

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