CHAPTER 7.

3
ANIMALIA:
THE PROTOSTOMES

INTRODUCTION

Coelom is a fluid-filled space completely lined by

mesoderm that lies between the digestive tube and
outer body wall.
The evolution of coelom has made the internal
organs and digestive tubes are no longer
attached to the body wall except at the opening
and its end.
The advantage of coelomate animals is they can
move, swim, crawl or walk in greater range
rather than acoelomate animals.
Other advantage of the evolution of coelom is the
internal organs are well-developed.

The fluid-filled coelom is also protecting the

internal organ by cushioning them from any
vibration.
Evolution of coelom also helps in transportation
of materials such as food, waste and gasses. All
the animal cells are bathed by the coelomic fluid
and the extracellular cells are maintained in the
wet environment.
The coelom also provides space for gonads to
develop. During the mating session, the gonads
enlarge as they filled with mature gamete cells.

LOPHOTROCOZOANS AND
ECDISOZOANS

Protostomes into two branches:

- Lophotrochozoa include the nemerteans,
mollusks, annelids and lophophorates. They
are characterized by a ciliated ring of tentacles
surrounding the mouth.
- Ecdysozoa include nematodes and
arthropods. Characterized by the cuticle. They
are molting, or ecdysis. During an ecdysis, an
animal shed its cuticle.

Characteristics of lophotrochozoans.

Ecdysis.

This molting
cicada is in
the process
of emerging
from its old
exoskeleton.
The animal
now
secretes a
new, larger
exoskeleton.

RIBBON WORMS
(Phylum Nemertia)

Members of Nemertians are commonly called

proboscis worms or ribbon worms.
They lives mainly in marine and a few inhabit
freshwater or damp soil. Some are active
swimmer and others burrow in the sand.
They are carnivorous, feeding on crustaceans
and other worms.
Their body is long and narrow, either
cylindrical or flattened and sometimes colorful.

A ribbon worm, phylum

Nemertea

Although their body is structurally acoelomate, but

it contains a small, fluid-filled sac that may be a
reduced version of a coelom known as
rhynchocoel.
Rhynchocoel is the fluid-filled sac acts as an
extensible proboscis, which can be rapidly shoot
out of the body.
Nemertians develop sensory, nervous and
secretory systems.
However they also have evolved an alimentary
canal and separated from a circulatory system.

The blood is contains in a specialized vessel and

therefore separated from fluid in body cavity.
The transportation of materials by blood flows is
help by the movement of body and contraction of
muscular blood vessels.

MOLLUSKANS
(Phylum Molluska)

Mollusk came from Latin word means softbodied animals but some of them are protected
by a shell made from CaCO3.
They live in marine, freshwater and some in
damp land area. The animal includes snails,
slugs, oysters, clamps, octopuses and squids.

All mollusk are similar in their body plan which has

3 main parts:
- Muscular foot: located ventrally for
movement
- Visceral mass: keeping all the internal organs
- Mantle: a fold of tissues that wrap over the
visceral mass and secrete a shell (for some
species). Some may have mantle cavity which
houses gills, anus and excretory pore.

The coelom is reduced to small compartments

around certain organs including heart and
excretory organs known as metanephridia.
Most mollusks also have an open circulatory
system in which the blood is called hemolymph.
The circulatory system eventually forms a body
cavity called hemocoel, a space containing
hemolymph. However in some active mollusk,
they develop a closed circulatory system such as in
cephalopods.
The feeding mode is by using a rasping organ
called radula to scrape up food.

The basic body plan of a mollusc

Most mollusks are having separate sexes with

gonads located visceral mass. However, some of
the snail species are hermaphrodite.
The life cycle of marine mollusks include a ciliated
larval stage called trochopore.
Major classes in Phylum Molluska is:
Polyplacophora, Gastropoda, Bivalvia and
Cephalopoda

Class Polyplacophora:

This group containing all members of chitons.

Their body shape is oval with a shell divided
into 8 dorsal plates.
The inner body is actually unsegmented.
Habitat is mainly in marine ecosystem where
they can be found easily clinging to the rocks
along the seashore during low tide.
The muscular foot clings very tight to the rocks
until it is difficult to detach them by hands.
The chitons used their radula to cut and ingest
algae.

A chiton. Clinging tenaciously to rocks in the intertidal zone, this chiton displays the eightplate shell characteristic of
molluscs in the class Polyplacophora.

Class Gastropoda:

The members of gastropods are snails and slugs.

The most distinctive characteristics are a
developmental process known as torsion. During
the development of embryo, its visceral mass
rotates up to 180, causing the animals anus
and mantle cavity to wind above its head.
Most gastropods have a single, spiraled shell into
which the animals can retreat when threatened.
Their shells can be in conical or flattened shape.
Many of them have a prominent head with eyes
at the tip of tentacles.

Their movement is literally by a rippling motion

of their foot or by means of cilia.
Radula is the organ used to graze on algae or
plants. However, in some species, radula is
modified to for boring holes or for tearing apart
prey. Some have modified radula as poisonous
darts that used to subdue prey.
Many gastropods have a well-developed head with
tentacles.
Two simple eyes may be located on stalks that
extend from the head.

The results of torsion in a gastropod. Because of torsion (twisting of the

visceral mass) during embryonic development, the digestive tract is coiled and the
anus is near the anterior end of the animal.

Gastropods

Class Bivalvia:

The members of bivalves include clams,

mussels, scallops and oysters.
The most striking feature is their shell divided
into 2 halves.
The halves are hinged at the mid-dorsal line
and powerful adductor muscles draw them
tightly to protect the soft-bodied in between.
Bivalves have no distinct head and the
radula organ is lost.
Instead the mantle cavity contains gills that
are used for feeding and gas exchanges.

Most of them are suspension feeders. They trap

fine food particles in mucus that coats their gills
and cilia convey the particles to mouth.
Water is entering the mantle cavity through an
incurrent siphon, and exits through excurrent
siphon.
Most of bivalves live sedentarily which suit to
suspension feeding.
Sessile bivalves secrete strong thread to adhere at
any substratum but some of clams can buried
themselves under sand and mud.

A bivalve. This scallop has many eyes (dark blue spots) peering out from each half
of its hinged shell.

Anatomy of a
clam.
The left half of
the clams
shell has been
removed. Food
particles
suspended in
water that
enters through
the incurrent
siphon are
collected by
the gills and
passed via cilia
and elongated
flaps called
palps to the
mouth.

Class Cephalopoda:

The members of cephalopods include squids,

octopuses, cuttlefishes and nautiluses.
The word cephalopods mean head foot. They
are marine active predator.
The foot has been modified into a muscular
excurrent siphon and become parts of the
tentacles and head.
They use their tentacles to grasp prey and their
beak-like jaws to inject and immobilizing poison
(ink sac).

The movement is vary - the octopuses creep

along the seafloor looking for foods while the
squids dart about by drawing water into the
mantle cavity and firing a jet of water through the
excurrent siphon. The steer by pointing the siphon
in opposite direction.
Many of the cephalopods have lost their shell
unless in nautiluses.
A mantle covers the whole viscera mass. They are
also the only mollusk which possesses a closed
circulatory system.
Sense organ and brain are well-developed.

Cephalopods

SEGMENTED WORMS
(Phylum Annelida)

The word annelid is referring to the little

rings. The annelids body is resemble to a long
series of fused rings.
Their habitat mainly freshwater and damp soil
but some may be found in the sea.
The advantage of the segmentation is for
locomotion. Bristles or chaeta is observed
in each segment. Each segment are separated
from one another internally by transverse
partition called septa.
The phylum is divided into 3 main classes:
Oligochaeta, Polychaeta and Hirudinea.

Class Oligochaeta:

Oligochaeta means few long hairs. They are

named in relation to their sparse chaeta or
bristles made of chitin for each segment.
The members of oligochaeta are earthworms.
The body is just as a long, cylinder; segmentation
can be more than 100 which divided internally by
septa and reduction in the formation of head
organ.
Earthworm inhabits underground and eats soil
through their burrowing pathways.

Anatomy of an earthworm

They extract nutrients as the soil passes through

alimentary canal and egested undigested
materials mixed with mucus as casting through
anus.
Their casting is important economically to fertilize
and improve the texture of soil.
Each earthworm is hermaphrodite but they
sexually cross fertilized.
Their embryo develops inside a structure known as
cocoon made of thickening mucus.
Asexual reproduction is done by fragmentation
and followed by regeneration.

Class Polychaeta:

Live mainly in marine.

Their body is well developed with head organ.
Each segment has a pair of paddle-like
structures called parapodia that function in
locomotion. Each parapodium consists of
several chaeta and richly supplied with blood
vessels.
They also function as gills and more numerous
compared to oligochaetes.
These species are drift and swim among the
plankton (free-swimmer) and some may evolve
to be tube-dwellers or sand burrowers.

A polychaete.

Hesiolyra bergi

lives on the
seafloor around
deepsea
hydrothermal
vents.

Class Hirudinea:

Most of leeches live in freshwater and terrestrial

land that densely occupied with moist
vegetation.
Many of them are predators that feed on
other invertebrates and some are parasites that
suck blood by attaching temporarily to other
animals.
Their body usually flattened with reduced
coelom and segmentation.
Chaeta are absent in all leeches. However,
both their anterior and posterior parts contain
suckers to attach at other animals.

A leech. A nurse
applied this medicinal
leech (Hirudo
medicinalis) to a
patients sore thumb to
drain blood from a
hematoma (an
abnormal accumulation
of blood around an
internal injury).

Leeches are important in medical (Hirudo

medicinalis) and frequently used as blood-letting.
It helps to drain blood that accumulates in tissues
after certain injuries or surgeries.
Hirudin, a chemical released by leeches during
sucking keeps the blood of the host from
coagulating.

THE LOPHOPHORATE PHYLA

Lophophorates are marine animals that are

adapted for life on the ocean floor.
The lophophore, a ciliated ring of tentacles
that surrounded the mouth, is specialized for
capturing suspended particles in water.
The members of lophophorate are:
1) Brachipoda: Marine animal, superficially
resemble clams.
2) Phoronida: Secrete tube of sediment and live
in them, extending lophophore from the tube
for feeding.
3) Bryozoa: mosses animal. Form sessile
colonies by asexual budding.

Lophophorates

WHEEL ANIMALS
(Phylum Rotifera)

Rotifers are tiny, floating animals that inhabit

marine and fresh water.
They are microscopic organisms and made up
about 50% of plankton population.
The most significant feature is based on the word
rotifer which means wheel bearer referring to
the crown of cilia that draws a vortex of water
into the mouth (anterior part).
Rotifers have developed an alimentary tract
with separated mouth and anus. However, their
internal organs lie within pseudocoelom and the
fluid inside acts as hydrostatic skeleton.

A rotifer. These pseudocoelomates, smaller than many protists, are generally more
anatomically complex than flatworms (LM).

Rotifers have a nervous system with a brain

and sense organs, including eyespots.
Protonephridia with flame cells remove excess
water from the body and may also excrete
metabolic wastes.

ROUND WORMS
(Phylum Nematoda)

All the nematodes species have cylindrical

body and tapering to a fine tip at the posterior
and whereas the tip of the anterior end is blunt.
The body is covered by a tough coat called
cuticle and not segmented.
Nematodes have an alimentary tract but lack of
circulatory system.
The transportation of nutrient is via fluid in
pseudocoelom and contraction of longitudinal
muscle.

Nematods reproduction is usually sexual and

involves internal fertilization.
The female is larger than male individual because
female may deposit 100,000 or more fertilized eggs
per day.
The zygotes are resistant cells towards unfavorable
condition.
Nematodes are important as decomposer of
organic materials and involve in nutrient cycling, as
a pest that attack plants and as parasites in
human.
Example: Ascaris sp., hookworms and pinworms.

A freeliving nematode (colorized SEM).

Juveniles of the parasitic nematode Trichinella spiralis encysted in human muscle

tissue (LM).

ARTHROPODS
(Phylum Arthropoda)

Arthropods are diverse in number and varieties.

Arthropods means jointed feet related to their
segmented body, hard exoskeleton and jointed
appendages.
The arthropods segmented body is completely
covered by a cuticle which made up the
exoskeleton constructed from chitin.
The exoskeleton is important to prevent
dehydration and protection. Their body grows
through a molting process known as ecdysis.

They have paired and jointed appendages that

serve as swimming paddles, walking legs,
mouth parts for capturing prey and organs
for transferring sperm.
Arthropods have brain, ventral nerve cord and
well-developed sensory organs such as
compound eyes, olfactory receptors and antennae
that centralized at the anterior head.

Arthropods developed an open circulatory

system in which the fluid (blood) flows inside is
known as hemolymph.
A variety of organs specialized for gas exchanges
have evolved in arthropods. Aquatic species have
gills with thin and feathery extensions.
However, the land arthropods generally have
internal surfaces such as tracheal systems in
insects and book lungs.
Three subphyla of phylum Arthropoda will be
discussed: Chelicerata, Crustacea and
Uniramia.

External anatomy of an arthropod. Many of the distinctive features of arthropods

are apparent in this dorsal view of a lobster, along with some uniquely crustacean
characteristics. The body is segmented, but this characteristic is obvious only in the
abdomen. The appendages (including antennae, pincers, mouthparts, walking legs,
and swimming appendages), are jointed. The head bears a pair of compound
(multilens) eyes, each situated on a movable stalk. The whole body, including
appendages, is covered by an exoskeleton.

Subphylum Chelicerata:

Includes the merostomes (horseshoe crabs) and

the arachnids.
The chelicerates body consists of a cephalothorax,
an abdomen, no antennae and no chewing
mandibles.
The first pair of appendages located immadiately
anterior to the mouth, are the chelicerae.
The second pair of appendages are the pedipalps.
The chelicerae and the pedipalps are modified to
perform different functions e.g. manipulation of
food, locomotion, defense and copulation.
Another pairs of legs are specialized for walking.

Horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus). Common on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts
of the United States, these living fossils have changed little in hundreds of millions of
years. They have survived from a rich diversity of cheliceriforms that once filled the
seas.

Arachnids.

Arachnids include spiders, scorpions, ticks and

mites.
Spiders have eight eyes arranged at the
cephalothorax.
Gas exchange in arachnids take place by either
tracheal tubes, book lungs, or both.
The spider has unique glands in its abdomen that
secrete silk and elastic protein that is spun into
fibers by organ called spinnerets. They used this
silk to build nests, encase their eggs in cocoon,
and to trap prey in a web.

Anatomy of a spider

Subphylum Crustacea:

Includes the lobsters, crabs, shrimps and their

relatives.
A distinctive feature of crustaceans is the nauplius
larva, the first stage after hatching. This larva has
only the most anterior three pairs of appendages.
Crustaceans are also characterized by mandibles,
biramous appendages, two pairs of antennae
and maxillae.
Have separate sexes. During copulation, the
male uses specialized appendages to transfer
sperm into female.

Crustaceans

Subphylum Uniramia:

Include the insects, centipedes and milipedes.

Characterized by uniramous (unbranched)
appendages, similar mouthparts and single
pair of antennae.

Class Insecta:

Is an articulated, tracheated hexapod; its body

consists of head, thorax and abdomen.
Insects have a system of tracheae for gas
exchange and Malphigian tubules for excretion.
The biological success of insects including:
versatile exoskeleton, segmentation,
specialized jointed appendages, ability to fly,
highly developed sense organs,
metamorphosis, effective reproductive
strategies, effective mechanisms for defense
and offense, and the ability to communicate.

Anatomy of a grasshopper, an insect.

Metamorphosis of a butterfly.
(a)

(b)
(c)

(d)
(e)

The larva (caterpillar) spends its time eating and growing,

molting as it grows.
After several molts, the larva develops into a pupa.
Within the pupa, the larval tissues are broken down, and the
adult is built by the division and differentiation of cells that
were quiescent in the larva.
Eventually, the adult begins to emerge from the pupal cuticle.
Hemolymph is pumped into veins of the wings and then
withdrawn, leaving the hardened veins as struts supporting
the wings. The insect will fly off and reproduce, deriving
much of its nourishment from the calories stored by the
feeding larva.

Class Chilopoda and

Diplopoda:

The centipedes (class Chilopoda) have one pair of

legs per body segment, whereas milipedes (class
Diplopoda) have two pairs of legs per body
segment.
Centipedes are carnivorous whereas milipedes
are typically herbivorous.

A millipede.

A centipede.