Echinoderms are marine animals with radial symmetry and endoskeletons covered by spiny skin. They move using a hydraulic water vascular system and tube feet. Echinoderms have a simple nervous system and varied diets. There are over 6000 living echinoderm species including sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea lilies, and brittle stars.
Echinoderms are marine animals with radial symmetry and endoskeletons covered by spiny skin. They move using a hydraulic water vascular system and tube feet. Echinoderms have a simple nervous system and varied diets. There are over 6000 living echinoderm species including sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea lilies, and brittle stars.
Echinoderms are marine animals with radial symmetry and endoskeletons covered by spiny skin. They move using a hydraulic water vascular system and tube feet. Echinoderms have a simple nervous system and varied diets. There are over 6000 living echinoderm species including sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea lilies, and brittle stars.
Echinoderms are marine animals with radial symmetry and endoskeletons covered by spiny skin. They move using a hydraulic water vascular system and tube feet. Echinoderms have a simple nervous system and varied diets. There are over 6000 living echinoderm species including sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea lilies, and brittle stars.
hydraulic, suction-cup-tipped appendages and have skin covered with tiny, jawlike pincers.
Echinoderms are found in all the oceans of the world. Echinoderms have endoskeletons SKIN: all have a hard, spiny, or bumpy endoskeleton covered by a thin epidermis. Endoskeleton of all echinoderms is made primarily of calcium carbonate, the compound that makes up limestone. Echinoderms have endoskeletons Some spines have become modified into pincerlike appendages called pedicellariae (PEH dih sih LAHR ee ay).
An echinoderm uses Pedicellariae
its jawlike pedicellariae for protection and for cleaning the surface of its body. Echinoderms have radial symmetry Radial symmetry is an advantage to animals that are stationary or move slowly.
Radial symmetry enables these animals to sense potential food, predators, and other aspects of their environment from all directions. The water vascular system The water vascular system is a hydraulic system that operates under water pressure.
Water enters and leaves the water vascular
system of a sea star through the madreporite (mah druh POHR ite), a sievelike, disk-shaped opening on the upper surface of the echinoderm’s body. The water vascular system The underside of a sea star has tube feet that run along a groove on the underside of each ray. The water vascular system Tube feet are hollow, thin-walled tubes that end in a suction cup. The round, muscular structure called the ampulla (AM pew lah) works something like the bulb of a dropper. Each tube foot works independently of the others, and the animal moves along slowly by alternately pushing out and pulling in its tube feet. Section 29.1 Summary – pages 763-769 The water vascular system Tube feet also function in gas exchange and excretion. Echinoderms have varied nutrition All echinoderms have a mouth, stomach, and intestines, but their methods of obtaining food vary.
Sea stars are carnivorous and prey on
worms or on mollusks such as clams. Echinoderms have varied nutrition
Most sea urchins are herbivores and graze on
algae.
Brittle stars, sea lilies, and sea cucumbers
feed on dead and decaying matter that drifts down to the ocean floor. Echinoderms have a simple nervous system Echinoderms have no head or Ring brain, but they do canal have a central nerve ring that surrounds the mouth. Echinoderms have a simple nervous system Nerves extend from the nerve ring down each ray. Echinoderms have cells that detect light and touch, but most do not have sensory organs.
A sensory organ known as an eyespot and
consisting of a cluster of light-detecting cells is located at the tip of each arm, on the underside. Echinoderms have a simple nervous system Eyespots enable sea stars to detect the intensity of light.
Sea stars also have chemical receptors on
their tube feet. Echinoderms are deuterostomes Echinoderms are deuterostomes; a broad classification of triploblastic animals that tend to share certain embryological traits.
This pattern of development indicates a close
relationship to chordates, which are also deuterostomes. Diversity of Echinoderms Approximately 6000 species of echinoderms exist today.
About one-fourth of these species are in the class Asteroidea (AS tuh ROY dee uh), to which the sea stars belong. Diversity of Echinoderms Section 29.1 Summary – pages 763-769
The five other classes of living echinodems are:
1.) Ophiuroidea (OH
fee uh ROY dee uh), the brittle stars 2.) Echinoidea (eh kihn OY dee uh), the sea urchins & sand dollars. Diversity of Echinoderms 3.) Holothuroidea (HOH loh thuh ROY dee uh), the sea cucumbers 4.) Crinoidea (cry NOY dee uh), the sea lilies & feather stars 5. Concentricycloidea (kon sen tri sy CLOY dee uh), the sea daisies.
