The Shape of Life . Ultimate Animal

They are exciting. They are wonderful. It takes some time and some patience to understand them, but the more you look, the neater they get. You really have to watch, they really don't give away their secrets easily. -- Gail Kaaialii

Kaaialii diving

Video: Kaaialii and students explore the underwater world of echinoderms

As a world-class outrigger canoeist, Gail Kaaialii loves speed. But as a biologist at Chaminade University in Honolulu, she studies some of the world's slowest moving animals--echinoderms.

Kaaialii acknowledges that we humans have a body plan that has led us to great success on Earth. But she's unwilling to say that our body plan is necessarily better than that of any other creature. Indeed, in her study of echinoderms, she's discovered that their bodies are ideally suited to the lives they lead on the ocean floor.

Kaaialii has concluded that, "When you investigate the lives of other organisms and you see that each is interesting and wonderful, you start to realize that the question of whether anybody is better becomes moot, irrelevant. It's not something you'd want to ask. You start to ask how do the others work--they're so neat."

Honolulu, HI
	Dr. Gail Kaaialii Biography and Career Q & A