Previous Home Next
Worm-like forms occur in 12 different phyla! "Worms" are simply soft-bodied animals that are longer than wide.
- 1) Ph. PLATYHELMINTHES includes the flatworms, flukes, & tapeworms. It is a well-defined phylum of >15,000 free-living & parasitic species found in marine, freshwater & terrestrial habitats.
- a) generally small in size (<2-3 cm) or flattened in form; can reach 60 cm (!)‹ larger worms are relatively flatter
- b) considered the most primitive taxon within the Protostomia:
- have some protostome characteristics (spiral cleavage, blastopore becomes mouth, multiciliated cells)
- lack others (coelom, circulatory system, anus, trochophore larvae)
- c) have a blind gut (no anus); the mouth is primitively mid-ventral but becomes anterior in derived taxa
- c) generally small in size or considerably flattened in form
- d) no circulatory system or coelom (filled with spongy parenchyma)
- e) depend on a network of protonephridia for excretion
- f) have a simple ladder-like nervous system with anterior brain
- g) tremendous capacity for regeneration & asexual reproduction
- h) most are hermaphroditic, have internal fertilization & direct development; primitive forms (archoopheran) show spiral cleavage; advanced forms (neoopheran) have peculiar yolk-covered eggs; larval form (if present) not a trochophore
- i) classification is a problem: Turbellaria are paraphyletic
- 2) Class TURBELLARIA- mostly free-living flatworms (3,000 spp.)
- a) have an extensively ciliated, glandular epidermis (multiciliated cells, produces mucous & crystalline rhabdites)
- b) vary body shape with circular, longitudinal & dorsoventral muscles
- c) gut may be absent (acoels), complex (polyclads), tripartite (triclads), or unbranched (rhabdocoels); mouth mainly midventral
- d) 3 forms of pharynx: simple, plicate (highly eversible), bulbous; ingest food via different techniques
- e) gonads may be absent (acoels), few (most), or many (polyclads)
- f) recent evidence suggests acoels may be the sister taxon to the Bilateria!
Back to Zool 250 Home Page
Copyright © 2002 by A. Richard Palmer. All rights reserved.
(revised Feb. 6, 2002)