Entoproct
Entoprocta (), or Kamptozoa , is a phylum of mostly sessile aquatic animals, ranging from long. Mature individuals are goblet-shaped, on relatively long stalks. They have a "crown" of solid tentacles whose cilia generate water currents that draw food particles towards the mouth, and both the mouth and anus lie inside the "crown". The superficially similar Bryozoa (Ectoprocta) have the anus outside a "crown" of hollow tentacles. Most families of entoprocts are colonial, and all but 2 of the 150 species are marine. A few solitary species can move slowly. Some species eject unfertilized ova into the water, while others keep their ova in brood chambers until they hatch, and some of these species use placenta-like organs to nourish the developing eggs. After hatching, the larvae swim for a short time and then settle on a surface. There they metamorphose, and the larval gut rotates by up to 180°, so that the mouth and anus face upwards. Both colonial and solitary species also ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bryozoa
Bryozoa (also known as the Polyzoa, Ectoprocta or commonly as moss animals) are a phylum of simple, aquatic animal, aquatic invertebrate animals, nearly all living in sedentary Colony (biology), colonies. Typically about long, they have a special feeding structure called a lophophore, a "crown" of tentacles used for filter feeder, filter feeding. Most Marine (ocean), marine bryozoans live in tropical waters, but a few are found in oceanic trenches and polar waters. The bryozoans are classified as the Stenolaemata, marine bryozoans (Stenolaemata), Phylactolaemata, freshwater bryozoans (Phylactolaemata), and Gymnolaemata, mostly-marine bryozoans (Gymnolaemata), a few members of which prefer brackish water. 5,869living species are known. Originally all of the crown group Bryozoa were colonial, but as an adaptation to a mesopsammal (interstitial spaces in marine sand) life or to deep-sea habitats, secondarily solitary forms have since evolved. Solitary species have been described i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tetraneuralia
Tetraneuralia is a proposed clade of spiralian bilaterians uniting the phyla Mollusca and Entoprocta. belonging to Lophotrochozoa that groups mollusks, entoprocts and the extinct family Cupithecidae. The clade is supported by several morphological similarities between the two and has turned out to be important for evolution of mollusks. It has been proposed by malacologists and zoologists when they observed that several morphological characteristics of entoprocts were clearly similar to those of mollusks. Both mollusks and entoprocts share a similar muscular system, the cuticle is the same in both, the hemolymph of the circulatory system is very similar, they have a tetraneuro nervous system with two pedal or ventral nerve cords. From this last characteristic the clade takes its name "tetraneuralia". Finally, entoprocts present similarities in the larval phases, they have a type of unique trochophore larva called "polyplacophora" and a complex larval apical organ.4 Molluscs are c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cotyledion
''Cotyledion tylodes'' is an extinct, stalked filter-feeder known from the Chengjiang lagerstatten. The living animal reached a couple of centimetres in height, and bore a loose scleritome of ovoid sclerites. Its interpretation has been controversial, but it is currently thought to be a member of the Entoprocta stem group. History of identification ''C. tylodes'' was initially tentatively classified as a stem group echinoderm in 1996, and then a lophophorate in 2002. Lophphorate affinities were challenged as based on taphonomic artifacts in a 2010 paper that suggested a cnidarian affinity based on cylyndrical symmetry as an ancestral body plan for that group. A more recent alternative proposal suggested a relationship with the Cambroernida, a group of early deuterostomes. However, a later comprehensive paper on cambroernids did not include ''Cotyledion''. A comprehensive 2013 study of around 400 new specimens provided stronger support for a lophophorate affinity, specific ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hinrich Nitsche
Hinrich Nitsche (14 February 1845, in Breslau – 8 November 1902, in Tharandt) was a German zoologist. He was a son-in-law to geographer Oscar Peschel (1826–1875). He studied zoology at the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, obtaining his doctorate at the latter institution in 1868. After graduation, he worked as an assistant to Rudolf Leuckart at the University of Leipzig. During the Franco-Prussian War, he served as a volunteer medical assistant. In 1875, he became an associate professor of zoology at Leipzig, and during the following year was appointed professor of zoology at the Royal Saxon Academy of Forestry in Tharandt. In 1869-70 he divided the phylum Bryozoa into two groups, Endoprocta and Ectoprocta, with the latter group of animals being characterized by having its anus outside of the crown of tentacles, as opposed to Endoprocta. Today the term "Ectoprocta" is considered to be synonymous with Bryozoa. The herpetological species Nitsche's bush viper (''Atheri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth transformation or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some insects, jellyfish, fish, amphibians, mollusks, crustaceans, cnidarians, echinoderms, and tunicates undergo metamorphosis, which is often accompanied by a change of nutrition source or behavior. Animals can be divided into species that undergo complete metamorphosis (" holometaboly"), incomplete metamorphosis (" hemimetaboly"), or no metamorphosis (" ametaboly"). Generally organisms with a larval stage undergo metamorphosis, and during metamorphosis the organism loses larval characteristics. Etymology The word ''metamorphosis'' derives from Ancient Greek , "transformation, transforming", from ('), "after" and ('), "form". Hormonal control In insects, growth and metamorphosis are controlled by hormones synthesized by ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cilia
The cilium (: cilia; ; in Medieval Latin and in anatomy, ''cilium'') is a short hair-like membrane protrusion from many types of eukaryotic cell. (Cilia are absent in bacteria and archaea.) The cilium has the shape of a slender threadlike projection that extends from the surface of the much larger cell body. Eukaryotic flagella found on sperm cells and many protozoans have a similar structure to motile cilia that enables swimming through liquids; they are longer than cilia and have a different undulating motion. There are two major classes of cilia: ''motile'' and ''non-motile'' cilia, each with two subtypes, giving four types in all. A cell will typically have one primary cilium or many motile cilia. The structure of the cilium core, called the axoneme, determines the cilium class. Most motile cilia have a central pair of single microtubules surrounded by nine pairs of double microtubules called a 9+2 axoneme. Most non-motile cilia have a 9+0 axoneme that lacks the central pai ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Zooid
A zooid or zoöid is an animal that is part of a colonial animal. This lifestyle has been adopted by animals from separate unrelated taxa. Zooids are multicellular; their structure is similar to that of other solitary animals. The zooids can either be directly connected by tissue (e.g. corals, Catenulida, Siphonophorae, Pyrosome or Ectoprocta) or share a common exoskeleton (e.g. Bryozoa or Pterobranchia). The colonial organism as a whole is called a ''zoon'' , plural ''zoa'' (from Ancient Greek meaning animal; plural , ). Zooids can exhibit polymorphism. For instance, extant bryozoans may have zooids adapted for different functions, such as feeding, anchoring the colony to the substratum and for brooding embryos. However, fossil bryozoans are only known by the colony structures that the zooids formed during life. There are correlations between the size of some zooids and temperature. Variations in zooid size within colonies of fossils can be used as an indicator of th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anus
In mammals, invertebrates and most fish, the anus (: anuses or ani; from Latin, 'ring' or 'circle') is the external body orifice at the ''exit'' end of the digestive tract (bowel), i.e. the opposite end from the mouth. Its function is to facilitate the defecation, expulsion of wastes that remain after digestion. Bowel contents that pass through the anus include the gaseous flatus and the semi-solid feces, which (depending on the type of animal) include: indigestible matter such as bones, hair pellet (ornithology), pellets, endozoochory, endozoochorous seeds and gastrolith, digestive rocks; Summary at residual food material after the digestible nutrients have been extracted, for example cellulose or lignin; ingested matter which would be toxic if it remained in the digestive tract; excretion, excreted metabolites like bilirubin-containing bile; and dead mucosal epithelia or excess gut bacteria and other endosymbionts. Passage of feces through the anus is typically controlled by ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Annelid
The annelids (), also known as the segmented worms, are animals that comprise the phylum Annelida (; ). The phylum contains over 22,000 extant species, including ragworms, earthworms, and leeches. The species exist in and have adapted to various ecologies – some in marine environments as distinct as tidal zones and hydrothermal vents, others in fresh water, and yet others in moist terrestrial environments. The annelids are bilaterally symmetrical, triploblastic, coelomate, invertebrate organisms. They also have parapodia for locomotion. Most textbooks still use the traditional division into polychaetes (almost all marine), oligochaetes (which include earthworms) and leech-like species. Cladistic research since 1997 has radically changed this scheme, viewing leeches as a sub-group of oligochaetes and oligochaetes as a sub-group of polychaetes. In addition, the Pogonophora, Echiura and Sipuncula, previously regarded as separate phyla, are now regarded as sub-grou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mollusc
Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The number of additional fossil species is estimated between 60,000 and 100,000, and the proportion of undescribed species is very high. Many taxa remain poorly studied. Molluscs are the largest marine biology, marine phylum, comprising about 23% of all the named marine organisms. They are highly diverse, not just in size and anatomical structure, but also in behaviour and habitat, as numerous groups are freshwater mollusc, freshwater and even terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial species. The phylum is typically divided into 7 or 8 taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class (biology), classes, of which two are entirely extinct. Cephalopod molluscs, such as squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses, are among the most neurobiology, neurologi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |