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Defining Features of Animal and Plant Phylums
Defining Features of Animal and Plant Phylums
Animalia - Chordata
• Hollow nerve chord running dorsally
• Gill clefts in the pharynx (at some point in their life history)
• Notochord (at some point in their life history)
Animalia - Echinodermata
• Bilaterally symmetrical as larvae but show five-rayed symmetry as
adults
• Calcareous endoskeleton
• Water vascular system
Animalia - Mollusca
• Usually unsegmented
Animalia - Anthropoda
• Segmentented
• Invertebrate
• Thickened chitinous cuticle forming a exoskeleton
Animalia - Annelidia
• Segmented
• Soft, elongated body
• Muscular body wall
• Blood system
• Nervous system
Animalia – Nematoda
• Slender
• Unsegmented
• Circular (in a cross section)
•
Animalia – Platyhelminthes
• Dorsoventrally flattened
• Bilaterally symmetrical
• Epidermis and gut separated by a solid mass of tissue
Animalia – Cnidaria
• Only one opening to the gut
• Radially symmetrical
Animalia – Porifera
• Simple body enclosing a single central cavity or penetrated by many
inter-connecting cavities
• Body wall consists of an outer layer of epithelium separated from an
inner layer of ciliated choanocytes by a mesogloeal layer
• No nerve cells
• No muscle cells
Plantae – Angiospermophyta
• Reproductive organs are carried in flowers
• Stamens and carpels are typically surrounded by sterile leaves (petals
and sepals)
Plantae – Coniferophyta
• Simple, often needle-like leaves
• Bear megasporangia in cones (usually)
Plantae – Filiconophta
• Have roots, stems and large leaves
• Fronds (large leaves) bear the sporangia
Plantae – Bryophyta
• Non-vascular
• Either thaloid or differentiated into stems and leaves