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Learn About More Unique Invertebrate Phyla!
If you want to learn more about a specific phylum, click the "Learn More!" button located under the name of the phylum to read an article or click the photo depicting the phylum to watch a video.
Placozoa
Placozoa
Placozoa free-living, non-parasitic marine invertebrates. Despite being considered the structurally simplest animal and being found in worldwide in warm waters, little is actually known about them. These animals are also known as booger creatures due to their unusual apprearance!
Mesozoa
Mesozoa
Mesozoa are simple, small, wormlike marine invertebrate. They are internal parasites, or that live in other marine invertebrates such as cephalopods, flatworms, mollusks and annelids.
Gnathostomulida
Gnathostomulida
Gnathostomulids, or jaw worms, are small marine animals that live in sand and mud of shallow water areas. They are able to live in relatively anoxic environments, or places with low or no oxygen levels, which humans cannot live in because we need oxygen to survive!
Gastrotricha
Gastrotricha
Gastrotrichs are microscopic organisms found in marine and freshwater sediment. They are commonly known as hairy hairybacks or hairybellies because of cilia on their bellies, that look like hair, used for movement.
Rotifera
Rotifera
Rotifers, or wheel animals, live in freshwater and moist soil. Many species of rotifers are consist of only females and no males, these species reproduce asexually. Some rotifers can resist radiation and drying out as they are very good at repairing their DNA.
Chaetognatha
Chaetognatha
Chaetognaths, or arrow worms, are a very small marine worms that are predators. They are one of the earliest active predators, dating back to the earl Cambrian period. These predators use hooks on their head to catch their prey, then often inject a neurotoxin.
Nematomorpha
Nematomorpha
Nematomorpha, or horsehair worms, are parasitic "zombie" worms that infect insects. Horsehair worms hijack the infected insect's brain and causes in a change of behavior that results in the insect drowning itself. Though deadly to arthropods, these worms cannot harm humans.
Kinorhyncha
Kinorhyncha
Kinorhyncha, or mud dragons, are microscopic organisms found in mud or sand. Like other invertebrates, they need to molt their cuticle (outer covering-like an exoskelton) to grow. Fossils of mud dragons have been found that are over 500 million years ago.
Loricifera
Loricifera
Loricifera, or corset animals, are small marine organisms that live in sediment on the ocean floor. They can live in anoxic environments, areas which do not have oxygen. They have a spiny, retractable head and a lorica which is protective armor shell.
Acanthocephala
Acanthocephala
Acanthocephalans, or thorny-headed worms, are parasites that require multiple hosts to complete their life cycle. They essentially hijack the brain and alter the behavior of the intermediate host, which is an invertebrate, to ensure it is eaten by a predator (the final host) that is a vertebrate.
Ciliophora
Ciliophora
Ciliophora, or ciliates, are unicellular organisms defined by their hair-like organelles called cilia. The cilia are used for movement and for feeding. Fossils of ciliates have been found dating around 580 million years ago. Though they consist of only a single cell, they are consumers not producers.
Entoprocta
Entoprocta
Entoprocta, or goblet worms, resemble flowers as they have a stalk and tentacles at the top. Their mouth and anus is located inside the ring of tentacles. They are sessile, meaning they attach to a surface and do not move. When under extreme stress, they can drop their "head" and regrow a new one at a later time.
Bryozoa
Bryozoa
Bryozoa, or moss animals, are small organisms that form colonies for mutual benefit. They have a crown of tentacles called a lophophore that filters food particles from the water. Fossils have been found as far back as about 480 million years ago.
Phoronida
Phoronida
Phoronida, or horseshoe worms, are small, marine organims that live in a tube. They have a "horseshoe" shaped, coil shaped or ring of tentacles called the lophophore that filters particles from the water for food. If these tentacles are damaged, they can rapidly regenerate new ones.
Brachiopoda
Brachiopoda
Brachiopods, or lamp shells, are marine organisms that look like bivalve mollusks (like clams) but are not. They have a feeding organ called the lophophore inside the shell. There have been fossils of lamp shells found that are estimated to be 540 million years old.
Priapulida
Priapulida
Priapulida, or penis worms, are unsegmented, carnivorous marine worms. They have a tubular, retractable organ called the proboscis that has spines or teeth that is used to catch prey. Considered living fossils, there is evidence of them dating back 500 million years ago.
Onychophora
Onychophora
Onychophora, or velvet worms, are soft bodied, many legged organisms. They are highly social animals, with female dominated social hierarchy. They are ambush predators and use slime to immobilize prey before injecting digestive saliva to liquefy the insides.
Hemichordata
Hemichordata
Hemichordates, also known as acorn worms or pterobranchs, are marine organism found in sediment that often live in U-shaped burrows. Their worm-like body has 3 distinct regions: a proboscis for burrowing, a collar and a trunk.
Chordata
Chordata
Chordates are a unique phylum consisting of both invertebrates and vertebrates. Humans and other vertebrates like mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are in this phylum! Invertebrates in this phylum are sea squirts and tunicates, which are marine organisms. All chordates have a notochord, which is essentially primitive spine, during their development. It is amazing to think we are so closely related to animals without a backbone!
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