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Free-living worm species do not live on land but instead live in marine or freshwater environments or underground by burrowing. In biology, "worm" refers to an obsolete taxon , Vermes , used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non- arthropod invertebrate animals , now seen to be paraphyletic .
Species in the phylum inhabit a broad range of environments. Most species are free-living, feeding on microorganisms, but many are parasitic. Parasitic worms (helminths) are the cause of soil-transmitted helminthiases. They are classified along with arthropods, tardigrades and other moulting animals in the clade Ecdysozoa.
Arthropoda is the largest animal phylum, with the estimates of the number of arthropod species varying from 1,170,000 to 5~10 million and accounting for over 80 percent of all known living animal species. [14] [15] One arthropod sub-group, the insects, includes more described species than any other taxonomic class. [16]
Mermithidae is a family of nematode worms that are endoparasites in arthropods. As early as 1877, Mermithidae was listed as one of nine subdivisions of the Nematoidea. [2] Mermithidae are confused with the horsehair worms of the phylum Nematomorpha that have a similar life history and appearance. Mermithids are parasites, mainly of arthropods ...
More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, [7] that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. [8] [9] Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, [10] of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. [11]
Some species of hammerhead worms produce a type of neurotoxin called tetrofotoxin to hunt creatures such as earthworms. They will paralyze a worm with the neurotoxin (found in the mucus secreted ...
Earthworm head. Depending on the species, an adult earthworm can be from 10 mm (0.39 in) long and 1 mm (0.039 in) wide to 3 m (9.8 ft) long and over 25 mm (0.98 in) wide, but the typical Lumbricus terrestris grows to about 360 mm (14 in) long. [9]
Onychophora / ɒ n ɪ ˈ k ɒ f ə r ə / (from Ancient Greek: ονυχής, onyches, "claws"; and φέρειν, pherein, "to carry"), commonly known as velvet worms (for their velvety texture and somewhat wormlike appearance) or more ambiguously as peripatus / p ə ˈ r ɪ p ə t ə s / (after the first described genus, Peripatus), is a phylum of elongate, soft-bodied, many-legged animals.