NOTE: The cladograms posted on these pages reflect a largely traditional view of metazoan relationships. However, considerable controversy persists over animal relations, often because of conflicts between traditional morphological characters and newer molecular DNA sequence data. So, these cladograms must be viewed as merely one of several competing views of animal relationships. See Important Note about Animal Relations for more details.

• The Tree of Life web site: http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html

• Brusca, R.C. & G.J. Brusca. 2003. Invertebrates, Sinauer.

• Eernisse, D. J., J. S. Albert, and F. E. Anderson. 1992. Annelida and Arthropoda are not sister taxa: A phylogenetic analysis of spiralian metazoan morphology. Systematic Biology 41:305-330.

• Janies, D. 2001. Phylogenetic relationships of extant echinoderm classes. Canadian Journal of Zoology 79:1232-1250.

• Keeling, P. J. et al. 2005. The tree of eukaryotes. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20: 670-676.

• Keeling, P. J. et al. 2007. Eukaryote phylogeny. Science 317:1875-1876.

• Martindale, M.Q., Finnerty, J.R. & J. Q. Henry. 2002. The Radiata and the evolutionary orginis of the bilaterian body plan. Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution 24: 358-365.

• Meglitsch, P.A. & F.R. Schram. Invertebrate Zoology, 3rd Ed, Oxford.

• Nielsen, C. 1995. Animal Evolution. Interrelationships of the Living Phyla, Oxford.

• Pearse, V., J. Pearse, M. Buchsbaum & R. Buchsbaum. 1987. Living Invertebrates, Blackwell.

• Regier et al. 2010. Arthropod relationships revealed by phylogenomic analysis of nuclear protein-coding sequences. Nature 463:1079-1084.

• Ruppert, E.E., R.S. Fox & R.D. Barnes. 2004. Invertebrate Zoology, 7th Ed, Thomson - Brooks/Cole.

• Sperling, E.A., Peterson, K.J. and D. Pisani. 2009. Phylogenetic-signal dissection of nuclear housekeeping genes supports the paraphyly of sponges and the monophyly of Eumetazoa. Molecular Biology & Evolution 26:2261-2274.

• Telford, M. J. 2008. Xenoturbellida: The fourth deuterostome phylum and the diet of worms. genesis 46:580-586.

• Wagele, J.-W. and B. Misof. 2001. On quality of evidence in phylogeny reconstruction: A reply to Zrzavy's defence of the 'Ecdysozoa' hypothesis. Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research 39: 165-176.

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