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Moving in water by ciliary motion, eating food by engulfment, reproducing by fission or budding, placozoans are described as "the simplest animals on Earth." [ 6 ] Structural and molecular analyses have supported them as among the most basal animals, [ 7 ] [ 8 ] thus, constituting a primitive metazoan phylum.
Four-stroke buccal pumping is used by some basal ray-finned fish and aquatic amphibians such as Xenopus and Amphiuma. [1] This method has several stages. These will be described for an animal starting with lungs in a deflated state: First, the glottis (opening to the lungs) is closed, and the nostrils are opened.
Aquatic animals generally conduct gas exchange in water by extracting dissolved oxygen via specialised respiratory organs called gills, through the skin or across enteral mucosae, although some are evolved from terrestrial ancestors that re-adapted to aquatic environments (e.g. marine reptiles and marine mammals), in which case they actually ...
In very small animals, plants and bacteria, simple diffusion of gaseous metabolites is sufficient for respiratory function and no special adaptations are found to aid respiration. Passive diffusion or active transport are also sufficient mechanisms for many larger aquatic animals such as many worms, jellyfish, sponges, bryozoans and similar ...
Aquatic insects consume the stored air while under water or use it to regulate buoyancy. During a molt, air sacs fill and enlarge as the insect breaks free of the old exoskeleton and expands a new one. Between molts, the air sacs provide room for new growth—shrinking in volume as they are compressed by expansion of internal organs.
The fossil is important because its cuticle contains openings which are interpreted as spiracles, part of a gas exchange system that would only work in air. This makes P. newmani the earliest documented arthropod with a tracheal system, and among the first known oxygen-breathing animal on land. [6] [10]
Hydra has a tubular, radially symmetric body up to 10 mm (0.39 in) long when extended, secured by a simple adhesive foot known as the basal disc. Gland cells in the basal disc secrete a sticky fluid that accounts for its adhesive properties. At the free end of the body is a mouth opening surrounded by one to twelve thin, mobile tentacles.
Having the simplest nervous system of any known organism, the neurology of H. vulgaris is of interest to the neuroscience community, in the hopes that understanding such simple circuitry will be a precedent for understanding the more complex function of brains.