Phylum Chordata

PHYLUM CHORDATA
MISS SAIRA BANO

Ph.D. Scholar
Bahauddin Zakariya University
Multan
PHYLUM CHORDATA
• The phylum Chordata includes about 45,000
species.
• Its members invade both aquatic and
terrestrial habitat.
• Sea squirts, members of the subphylum
Urochordata, are briefly described in the
“Evolutionary Perspective” that opens this
chapter.
• Other chordates include lancelets
(subphylum Cephalochordata) and the
vertebrates (subphylum Vertebrata).
CHARACTERITICS OF PHYLUM CHORDATA
1. Bilaterally symmetrical.
2. deuterostomate animals.
3. Four unique characteristics or hallmarks present at
some stage in development of chordates:
1. Notochord,
2. Pharyngeal slits or pouches
3. Dorsal tubular nerve cord
4. Postanal tail
4. Presence of an endostyle or thyroid gland
(sometimes 5th hallmark).
5. Complete digestive tract.
6. Ventral, contractile blood vessel (heart).
NOTOCHORD IN CHORDATES
• The phylum is named after the notochord (Gr. noton, the
back L. chorda, cord)
• Notochord is supportive rod that extends most of the
length of the animal dorsal to the body cavity and into the
tail.
• It consists of a connective-tissue sheath that encloses cells,
each of which contains a large, fluid-filled vacuole.
• This arrangement gives the notochord some turgidity,
which prevents compression along the anteroposterior
axis.
• At the same time, the notochord is flexible enough to
allow lateral bending, as in the lateral undulations of a fish
during swimming.
• In most adult vertebrates, cartilage or bone partly or
entirely replaces the notochord.
PHARYNGEAL SLITS
• Pharyngeal slits are a series of openings in the
pharyngeal region between the digestive tract and the
outside of the body.
• In some chordates, diverticula from the gut in the
pharyngeal region never break through to form an
open passageway to the outside.
• These diverticula are then called pharyngeal pouches.
• The earliest chordates used the slits for filter feeding;
• some living chordates still use them for feeding.
• Other chordates have developed gills in the pharyngeal
pouches for gas exchange.
• The pharyngeal slits of terrestrial vertebrates are
mainly embryonic features and may be incomplete.
• Pharyngeal slits are filter-feeding organs found in Invertebrate chordates living in aquatic environments.
• Pharyngeal slits are repeated openings that appear along the pharynx caudal to the mouth.
• With this position, they allow for the movement of water in the mouth and out the pharyngeal slits.
• It's postulated that this is how pharyngeal slits first assisted in filter-feeding, and later with the addition of gills
along their walls, aided in respiration of aquatic chordates.
• Some hemichordate species can have

as many as 200 gill slits.
• Pharyngeal slits resembling gill slits
are transiently present during the
embryonic stages
of tetrapod development.
• The presence of gill-like slits in the
neck of the developing human
embryo led Ernst Haeckel to
postulate that "ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny"; this
hypothesis, while false, contains
elements of truth.
• However, it is now accepted that it is
the vertebrate pharyngeal pouches
and not the neck slits that
are homologous to the pharyngeal Human embryo
slits of invertebrate chordates.
• Gill slits are, at some stage of life,
found in all chordates. The Human embryo contains 5 pairs of pharyngeal
• One theory of their origin is the
fusion of nephridia which opened
pouches of which 5th one is atypical and often
both on the outside and the gut, considered as part of fourth . Epithelial
creating openings between the gut endodermal lining of pouches give rise to a number
and the environment
of organs.
TUBULAR NERVE CORD
• The tubular nerve cord and
its associated structures are
largely responsible for
chordate success.
• The nerve cord runs along
the longitudinal axis of the
body, just dorsal to the
notochord, and usually
expands anteriorly as a brain.
• This central nervous system
is associated with the
development of complex
systems for sensory
perception, integration, and
motor responses.
POST ANAL TAIL
• The fourth chordate
characteristic is a
postanal tail.
• A postanal tail extends
posteriorly beyond the
anal opening.
• Either the notochord
or vertebral column
supports the tail.

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PHYLUM CHORDATA

MISS SAIRA BANO

• Some hemichordate species can have

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