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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 .
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. [35] [36] One arthropod sub-group, the insects, includes more described species than any other taxonomic class. [37]
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.
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]
[36] [37] The compound eyes probably evolved independently of arthropods' eyes. [23] Some tube-worms use ocelli widely spread over their bodies to detect the shadows of fish, so that they can quickly withdraw into their tubes. [36] Some burrowing and tube-dwelling polychaetes have statocysts (tilt and balance sensors) that indicate which way is ...
The team said this ancient creature “provides key clues” on how modern arthropods – a group of animals that includes insects, spiders, crabs and centipedes – evolved from worm-like ancestors.
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]
Marine horsehair worms spend their entire lives in water, but freshwater species are only aquatic as adults. Behavior manipulation of host animals is known only in freshwater species.