Phylum

Meaning

Common
name
Thornyheaded
worms

Acanthocephala

Thorny
headed
worms

Acoelomorpha

Without
gut

Acoels

Annelida

Little ring

Annelids

Arthropoda

Jointed
foot

Arthropods

Brachiopoda

Arm foot

Lamp shells

Bryozoa

Moss
animals

Moss
animals, sea
mats

Chaetognatha

Longhair
jaw
With a
cord

Arrow worms

Stinging
nettle
Comb
bearer
Wheel
carrying

Anemones /
Jellyfish
Comb jellies

Echinodermata

Spiny
skin

Echinoderms

Entoprocta

Inside
anus
Hair
stomach
Jaw

Goblet worm

Chordata

Cnidaria
Ctenophora
Cycliophora

Gastrotricha
Gnathostomulida

Chordates

Symbion

Hairybacks
Jaw worms

Distinguishing
characteristic
Reversible spiny
proboscis that bears
many rows of hooked
spines
No mouth or
alimentary canal
(alimentary canal =
digestive tract in
digestive system)
Multiple circular
segment
Segmented bodies and
jointed limbs, with
Chitin exoskeleton
Lophophore and
pedicle
Lophophore, no
pedicle, ciliated
tentacles, anus outside
ring of cilia
Chitinous spines either
side of head, fins
Hollow dorsal nerve
cord, notochord,
pharyngeal slits,
endostyle, post-anal
tail
Nematocysts (stinging
cells)
Eight "comb rows" of
fused cilia
Circular mouth
surrounded by small
cilia, sac-like bodies
Fivefold radial
symmetry in living
forms, mesodermal
calcified spines
Anus inside ring of
cilia
Two terminal adhesive
tubes

Species described
approx. 1,100

approx. 350

17,000+ extant
1,134,000+

300-500 extant
5,000 extant

approx. 100 extant

approx. 100,000+

approx. 11,000
approx. 100 extant
3+

approx. 7,000
extant; approx.
13,000 extinct
approx. 150
approx. 690
approx. 100

Hemichordata

orifice
Half cord

Acorn worms, Stomochord in collar,

pterobranchs pharyngeal slits
Motion
Mud dragons Eleven segments, each
snout
with a dorsal plate
Corset
Brush heads
Umbrella-like scales at
bearer
each end
Tiny jaw

Accordion-like
animals
extensible thorax
Soft
Mollusks /
Muscular foot and
molluscs
mantle round shell
Thread
Round worms Round cross section,
like
keratin cuticle
Thread
Horsehair
form
worms
A sea
Ribbon
nymph
worms
Claw
Velvet worms Legs tipped by
bearer
chitinous claws
Straight
Single layer of ciliated
swim
cells surrounding a
mass of sex cells
Zeus's
Horseshoe
U-shaped gut
mistress
worms
Plate
Differentiated top and
animals
bottom surfaces, two
ciliated cell layers,
amoeboid fiber cells in
between
Flat worm Flatworms

approx. 100 extant

Pore
bearer
Little
Priapus
Lozenge
animal

Sponges

5,000+ extant

Rotifers

Tardigrada

Wheel
bearer
Small
tube
Slow step

Xenacoelomorph

Strange

Kinorhyncha
Loricifera
Micrognathozoa
Mollusca
Nematoda
Nematomorpha
Nemertea
Onychophora
Orthonectida

Phoronida
Placozoa

Platyhelminthes
Porifera*
Priapulida
Rhombozoa

Rotifera
Sipuncula

Perforated interior
wall

Penis worms

approx. 150
approx. 122
1
112,000[12]
25,000
1,000,000[13][14]
approx. 320
approx. 1,200
approx. 200 extant
approx. 20

11
1

approx. 25,000[15]

approx. 16
Single anteroposterior
axial cell surrounded
by ciliated cells
Anterior crown of cilia

Peanut worms Mouth surrounded by

invertible tentacles
Water bears
Four segmented body
and head

Ciliated deuterostome

75

approx. 2,000
144320
1,000+
2

a
Total: 35

flatworm
2,000,000+

Acanthocephala
Ex: Polymorphus spp.
Polymorphus spp. are parasites of seabirds, particularly the eider duck (Somateria mollissima). Heavy
infections of up to 750 parasites per bird are common, causing ulceration to the gut, disease and seasonal
mortality. Recent research has suggested that there is no evidence of pathogenicity of Polymorphus spp.
to intermediate crab hosts. The cystacanth stage is long lived and probably remains infective throughout
the life of the crab

History
The earliest recognisable description of Acanthocephala a worm with a proboscis armed with hooks
was made by Italian author Francesco Redi (1684).[1] In 1771, Joseph Koelreuter proposed the name
Acanthocephala.[1] Philipp Ludwig Statius Mller independently called them Echinorhynchus in 1776.[1]
Karl Rudolphi in 1809 formally named them Acanthocephala.

Scanning electron microscopy of proboscis of Cathayacanthus spinitruncatus.

Acoelomorpha

Symsagittifera roscoffensis
Acoelomorpha is a subphylum of very simple and small soft-bodied animals with planula-like features
that live in marine or brackish waters. They usually live between grains of sediment, swimming as
plankton, or crawling on other organisms, such as algae and corals. Acoelomorphs resemble flatworms in
many respects, but have a simpler anatomy, not even having a gut. Like flatworms, they have no
circulatory or respiratory systems, but they also lack an excretory system. They lack body cavities
(acoelomate structure), a hindgut or an anus.

Brachiopoda
Brachiopods, phylum Brachiopoda, are marine animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and
lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at
the rear end, while the front can be opened for feeding or closed for protection.
Taxonomical history
rachiopod fossils show great diversity in the morphology of the shells and lophophore, while the modern
genera show less diversity but provide soft-bodied characteristics. Both fossils and extant species have
limitations that make it difficult to produce a comprehensive classification of brachiopods based on
morphology. The phylum also has experienced significant convergent evolution and reversals (in which a
more recent group seems to have lost a characteristic that is seen in an intermediate group, reverting to a
characteristic last seen in an older group). Hence some brachiopod taxonomists believe it is premature to
define higher levels of classification such as order, and recommend instead a bottom-up approach that
identifies genera and then groups these into intermediate groups.

Pygites diphyoides (d'Orbigny, 1849) from the Hauterivian

(Lower Cretaceous) of Cehegin, Murcia, Spain. This terebratulid is characterized by a central
perforation through its valves.

Strophomenid brachiopod with attached cornulitid worm tube (Upper Ordovician, SE Indiana, USA).
Brachiopod valves often serve as substrates for encrusting organisms.

Isocrania costata, Upper Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous), Maastricht, The Netherlands

A dense assemblage of the Ordovician species Cincinnetina meeki (Miller, 1875)

Productid brachiopod ventral valve; Roadian, Guadalupian (Middle Permian); Glass Mountains, Texas

Brachiopod morphology

A Carboniferous brachiopod Neospirifer condor, from Bolivia. The specimen is 7 cm across

Rhynchotrema dentatum, a rhynchonellid brachiopod from the Cincinnatian (Upper Ordovician)

of southeastern Indiana

A Devonian spiriferid brachiopod from Ohio that served as a host substrate for a colony of
hederellids. The specimen is 5 cm wide.

Syringothyris texta (Hall 1857), dorsal view, internal mold. Lower Carboniferous of Wooster,
Ohio

Petrocrania brachiopods attached to a strophomenid brachiopod; Upper Ordovician of

southeastern Indiana.


Lingula found near Ozamis City, Philippines

Brachiopod casts in the Lock Haven Formation

Hercosestria cribrosa Cooper & Grant 1969 (Roadian, Guadalupian, Middle Permian); Glass
Mountains, Texas.

Productid brachiopod ventral valve interior; Roadian, Guadalupian (Middle Permian); Glass
Mountains, Texas.

Terebratella sanguinea (Leach, 1814).

Lingula anatina from Stradbroke

Island, Australia

A fossil of Spiriferina rostrata with visible brachidium (lophophore support)

Rhynchonellid brachiopod with interior spondylium ("C" in image) visible; Roadian,

Guadalupian (Middle Permian); Glass Mountains, Texas.
Bryozoa
Bryozoa (also known as the Polyzoa, Ectoprocta or commonly as moss animals),[6] are a phylum of
aquatic invertebrate animals. Typically about 0.5 millimetres (0.020 in) long, they are filter feeders
that sieve food particles out of the water using a retractable lophophore, a "crown" of tentacles
lined with cilia. Most marine species live in tropical waters, but a few occur in oceanic trenches, and
others are found in polar waters. One class lives only in a variety of freshwater environments, and a
few members of a mostly marine class prefer brackish water. Over 4,000 living species are known.
One genus is solitary and the rest are colonial.
Taxonomy
The phylum was originally called "Polyzoa", but this name was soon replaced by Ehrenberg's term
"Bryozoa".[34][35] The name "Bryozoa" was originally applied only to the animals also known as
"Ectoprocta", in which the anus lies outside the "crown" of tentacles (based on the Ancient Greek prefix
meaning "outside" and word meaning "anus").

A colony of the modern marine bryozoan Flustra foliacea.

Cheilostome bryozoan with serpulid tubes; Recent; Cape Cod Bay, Duck Creek, near Wellfleet,
Massachusetts.

Peronopora, a trepostome bryozoan from the Whitewater Formation (Upper Ordovician) of

eastern Indiana.

Evactinopora bryozoan found in Jefferson County, Missouri, United States; from the permanent
collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis.

Bryozoan fossils in an Upper Ordovician oil shale (kukersite), northern Estonia.

Stereo image

[show]Left frame

[hide]Right frame

[show]Parallel view (
)
[show]Cross-eye vie
w( )
Fossilized skeleton of
Archimedes Bryozoan

Fossils of about 15,000 bryozoan species have been found. Bryozoans are among the three
dominant groups of Paleozoic fossils.[53] The oldest species with a mineralized skeleton occurs in
the Lower Ordovician.[1] It is likely that the first bryozoans appeared much earlier and were
entirely soft-bodied, and the Ordovician fossils record the appearance of mineralized skeletons in
this phylum.[5] By the Arenigian stage of the Early Ordovician period,[10][54] about 480 million
years ago, all the modern orders of stenolaemates were present,[55] and the ctenostome order of
gymnolaemates had appeared by the Middle Ordovician, about 465 million years ago. The Early
Ordovician fossils may also represent forms that had already become significantly different from
the original members of the phylum.[55] Ctenostomes with phosphatized soft tissue are known
from the Devonian.[56] Other types of filter feeders appeared around the same time, which
suggests that some change made the environment more favorable for this lifestyle.[10] Fossils of
cheilostomates, another order of gymnolaemates, first appear in the Mid Jurassic, about 172
million years ago, and these have been the most abundant and diverse bryozoans from the
Cretaceous to the present.[10] Evidence compiled from the last 100 million years show that
cheilostomates consistently grew over cyclostomates in territorial struggles, which may help to
explain how cheilostomates replaced cyclostomates as the dominant marine bryozoans.[57] Marine
fossils from the Paleozoic era, which ended 251 million years ago, are mainly of erect forms,
those from the Mesozoic are fairly equally divided by erect and encrusting forms, and more
recent ones are predominantly encrusting.[58] Fossils of the soft, freshwater phylactolaemates are
very rare,[10] appear in and after the Late Permian (which began about 260 million years ago) and
consist entirely of their durable statoblasts.[49] There are no known fossils of freshwater members
of other classes.[49]

Evolutionary family tree

Scientists are divided about whether the Bryozoa (Ectoprocta) are a monophyletic group
(whether they include all and only a single ancestor species and all its descendants), about what
are the phylum's closest relatives in the family tree of animals, and even about whether they
should be regarded as members of the protostomes or deuterostomes, the two major groups that
account for all moderately complex animals.

An Upper Ordovician cobble with the edrioasteroid Cystaster stellatus and the thin
branching cyclostome bryozoan Corynotrypa. Kope Formation, northern Kentucky.

Ropalonaria venosa, an etching trace fossil of a Late Ordovician ctenostome

bryozoan on a strophomenid brachiopod valve; Cincinnatian of southeastern
Indiana.[59]

Phaenopora superba, a ptilodictyine bryozoan from the Silurian of Ohio.

Encrusting cyclostome bryozoans (B), the one on the right showing swollen gonozooids; T =
thecideide brachiopod and S = sabellid worm tube; Jurassic of Poland.

lacelike Membranipora membranacea

Mauritanian bryolith formed by circumrotatory growth of the bryozoan species

Acanthodesia commensale.
Chaetognatha
Chaetognatha, meaning bristle-jaws, and commonly known as arrow worms, is a
phylum of predatory marine worms which are a major component of plankton
worldwide. About 20% of the known species are benthic, and can attach to algae
and rocks. They are found in all marine waters, from surface tropical waters and
shallow tide pools to the deep sea and polar regions. Most chaetognaths are
transparent and are torpedo shaped, but some deep-sea species are orange. They
range in size from 2 to 120 millimetres (0.1 to 4.7 in).

Spadella cephaloptera

The jaw organ of a Chaetognath of the genus Sagitta

Entoprocta
Entoprocta, whose name means "anus inside", is a phylum of mostly sessile
aquatic animals, ranging from 0.1 to 7 millimetres (0.004 to 0.3 in) 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 phylum consists of
about 150 recognized species, grouped into 4 families.[Taxonomy]

Barentsia discreta

Barentsa discrete

The Mid-Cambrian Dinomischus was once hailed as the earliest fossil entoproct,[24] but the
classification is uncertain[25]
Gastrotrich
The gastrotrichs (phylum Gastrotricha), commonly referred to as hairybacks, are a
group of microscopic (0.06-3.0 mm), worm-like, pseudocoelomate animals, and are
widely distributed and abundant in freshwater and marine environments. They are
mostly benthic and live within the periphyton, the layer of tiny organisms and
detritus that is found on the seabed and the beds of other water bodies. The
majority live on and between particles of sediment or on other submerged surfaces,
but a few species are terrestrial and live on land in the film of water surrounding
grains of soil.

Darkfield photograph of a gastrotrich

Lepidodermella squamata (Chaetonotida)

Ptychostomella sp., Macrodasyida

Gnathostomulid
Gnathostomulids, or jaw worms, are a small phylum of nearly microscopic marine
animals. They inhabit sand and mud beneath shallow coastal waters and can
survive in relatively anoxic environments. They were first recognised and described
in 1956.

Gnathostomula paradoxa
Rotifer

The rotifers (Rotifera, commonly called wheel animals) make up a phylum of microscopic and
near-microscopic pseudocoelomate animals.
They were first described by Rev. John Harris in 1696, and other forms were described by
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1703.[1] Most rotifers are around 0.10.5 mm long (although their
size can range from 50 m to over 2 mm),[2] and are common in freshwater environments
throughout the world with a few saltwater species; for example, those of genus Synchaeta.
Rev. John Harris first described the rotifers (in particular a bdelloid rotifer) in 1696 as "an animal like a
large maggot which could contract itself into a spherical figure and then stretch itself out again; the end of
its tail appeared with a forceps like that of an earwig".[1] In 1702, Anton van Leeuwenhoek gave a detailed
description of Rotifer vulgaris and subsequently described Melicerta ringens and other species.[7] He was
also the first to publish observations of the revivification of certain species after drying. Etymology
The word "rotifer" is derived from a Latin word meaning "wheel-bearer",[12] due to
the corona around the mouth that in concerted sequential motion resembles a
wheel (though the organ does not actually rotate).

Rotifera

A bdelloid rotifer

Ptygura pilula

Brachionus quadridentatus
Rotifer colonies

Colonial rotifers, tentatively identified as Conochilus from Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana: the
colony is somewhat less than 1 mm in diameter, but visible to the naked eye.

A colony of Sinantheria socialis on an Elodea densa leaf from North German Lake. Note heartshaped corona of individuals.

Scanning electron micrographs showing morphological variation of bdelloid

rotifers and their jaws.
Xenacoelomorpha

Xenacoelomorpha is a phylum of small and very simple animals composed by the

xenoturbellids and the acoelomorphs. It was suggested by molecular data and is also supported
by morphological synapomorphies.

Proporus sp., a xenacoelomorph

Tardigrade

Tardigrades(also known as water bears or moss piglets)[2][3][4] are water-dwelling, eight-legged,

segmented micro-animals.[2] They were first discovered by the German zoologist Johann August
Ephraim Goeze in 1773. The name Tardigrada (meaning "slow stepper") was given three years
later by the Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani.[5] They have been found everywhere from
mountaintops to the deep sea, from tropical rain forests to the Antarctic.

Hypsibius dujardini

SEM image of Milnesium tardigradum in active state

Echiniscus testudo

Shed cuticle of female Tardigrade, containing eggs.

Hypsibius dujardini imaged with a scanning electron microscope

Illustration of Echiniscus sp. from 1861

Loricifera

Loricifera (from Latin, lorica, corselet (armour) + ferre, to bear) is a phylum of very small to
microscopic marine sediment-dwelling animals with twenty-two described species, in eight
genera.[3][4] Aside from these described species, there are approximately 100 more that have been
collected and not yet described.

Pliciloricus enigmaticus
Kinorhyncha

Kinorhyncha (Ancient Greek: kn "I move", rhnkhos "snout") is a phylum of

small (1 mm or less) marine invertebrates that are widespread in mud or sand at all depths as part
of the meiobenthos. They are also called mud dragons.