BATHYBIUS HAECKELII. — A gelatinous mud dredged from the depths of the Atlantic, which T. H. Huxley so named, identifying in it the primordial living matter of the abyss (“organisms without organs” in Haeckel’s sense). In 1879 Huxley himself conceded the inorganic nature of B. H. Haeckel (v.) continued for some time to regard it as an undifferentiated protoplasmic mass in accordance with his preconceived theory of spontaneous generation.
BIBL.: E. Rädl, *Geschichte der biologischen Theorien*, II, Leipzig 1909, p. 291 sq.; O. Hertwig, *Allgemeine Biologie*, Jena 1923, p. 270.