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Hemichordate. Acorn worm, a hemichordate. Hemichordata (/ ˌhɛmɪkɔːrˈdeɪtə / HEM-ih-kor-DAY-tə) is a phylum which consists of triploblastic, eucoelomate, and bilaterally symmetrical marine deuterostome animals, generally considered the sister group of the echinoderms.
Hemichordates ("half chordates") have some features similar to those of chordates: branchial openings that open into the pharynx and look rather like gill slits; stomochords, similar in composition to notochords, but running in a circle round the "collar", which is ahead of the mouth; and a dorsal nerve cord—but also a smaller ventral nerve cord.
Another feature present in both the Hemichordata and Chordata is pharyngotremy — the presence of spiracles or gill slits into the pharynx, which is also found in some primitive fossil echinoderms . [16] [17] A hollow nerve cord is found in all chordates, including tunicates (in the larval stage). Some hemichordates also have a tubular nerve cord.
With the placement of hemichordates and echinoderms as a sister group to chordates, a new hypothesis has emerged-suggesting that pharyngeal gill slits were present in the deuterostome ancestor . [11] Intriguingly, extant echinoderms lack pharyngeal structures, but fossil records reveal that ancestral forms of echinoderms had gill-like ...
Ambulacraria / ˌ æ m b j uː l ə ˈ k r ɛər i ə /, or Coelomopora / s iː l ə ˈ m ɒ p ə r ə /, is a clade of invertebrate phyla that includes echinoderms and hemichordates; [1] a member of this group is called an ambulacrarian. Phylogenetic analysis suggests the echinoderms and hemichordates separated around 533 million years ago. [2]
The calcichordate hypothesis holds that each separate lineage of chordate (Cephalochordates, Urochordates, Craniates) evolved from its own lineage of mitrate, and thus the echinoderms and the chordates are sister groups, with the hemichordates as an out-group. [1] It was formulated by British Museum paleontologist Richard Jefferies.
The acorn worms or Enteropneusta are a hemichordate class of invertebrates consisting of one order of the same name. [2] The closest non-hemichordate relatives of the Enteropneusta are the echinoderms. [3] There are 111 known species of acorn worm in the world, [4] the main species for research being Saccoglossus kowalevskii.
Dorsal nerve cord. The dorsal nerve cord is an anatomical feature found in chordate animals, mainly in the subphyla Vertebrata and Cephalochordata, as well as in some hemichordates. It is one of the five embryonic features unique to all chordates, the other four being a notochord, a post-anal tail, an endostyle, and pharyngeal slits.