Evolution of Immunity and the Invertebrates "Article Summery" Name: "Immunity and the Invertebrates" Periodical: Scientific American Nov, 1996 Author: Gregory Beck and Gail S. Habicht Pages: 60 - 71 Total The complex immune systems of humans and other mammals evolved over quite a long time - in some rather surprising ways. In 1982 a Russian zoologist named Elie Metchnikoff noticed a unique property of starfish larva. When he inserted a foreign object through it's membrane, tiny cells would try to ingest the invader through the process of phagocytosis. It was already known that phagocytosis occurred in specialized mammal cells but never in some