Urmetazoan
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Urmetazoan
The Urmetazoan is the hypothetical last common ancestor of all animals or metazoans. It is universally accepted to be a multicellular heterotroph — with the novelties of a germline and oogamy, an extracellular matrix (ECM) and basement membrane, cell-cell and cell-ECM adhesions and signaling pathways, collagen IV and fibrillar collagen, different cell types (as well as expanded gene and protein families), spatial regulation and a complex developmental plan, and relegated unicellular stages. Choanoflagellates All animals are posited to have evolved from a flagellated eukaryote. Their closest known living relatives are the choanoflagellates, collared flagellates whose cell morphology is similar to the choanocyte cells of certain sponges. Molecular studies place animals in a supergroup called the opisthokonts, which also includes the choanoflagellates, fungi, and a few small parasitic protists. The name comes from the posterior location of the flagellum in motile cells, su ...
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Animal
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motility, able to move, can Sexual reproduction, reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage in which their body consists of a hollow sphere of Cell (biology), cells, the blastula, during Embryogenesis, embryonic development. Over 1.5 million Extant taxon, living animal species have been Species description, described—of which around 1 million are Insecta, insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million animal species in total. Animals range in length from to . They have Ecology, complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The scientific study of animals is known as zoology. Most living animal species are in Bilateria, a clade whose members have a Symmetry in biology#Bilate ...
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Urbilaterian
The urbilaterian (from German ur- 'original') is the hypothetical last common ancestor of the bilaterian clade, i.e., all animals having a bilateral symmetry. Appearance Its appearance is a matter of debate, for no representative has been (or may or may not ever be) identified in the fossil record. Two reconstructed urbilaterian morphologies can be considered: first, the less complex ancestral form forming the common ancestor to Xenacoelomorpha and Nephrozoa; and second, the more complex (coelomate) urbilaterian ancestral to both protostomes and deuterostomes, sometimes referred to as the "urnephrozoan". Since most protostomes and deuterostomes share features — e.g. nephridia (and the derived kidneys), through guts, blood vessels and nerve ganglia— that are useful only in relatively large (macroscopic) organisms, their common ancestor ought also to have been macroscopic. However, such large animals should have left traces in the sediment in which they moved, and evidenc ...
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Protist
A protist () is any eukaryotic organism (that is, an organism whose cells contain a cell nucleus) that is not an animal, plant, or fungus. While it is likely that protists share a common ancestor (the last eukaryotic common ancestor), the exclusion of other eukaryotes means that protists do not form a natural group, or clade. Therefore, some protists may be more closely related to animals, plants, or fungi than they are to other protists. However, like the groups ''algae'', ''invertebrates'', and '' protozoans'', the biological category ''protist'' is used for convenience. Others classify any unicellular eukaryotic microorganism as a protist. The study of protists is termed protistology. History The classification of a third kingdom separate from animals and plants was first proposed by John Hogg in 1860 as the kingdom Protoctista; in 1866 Ernst Haeckel also proposed a third kingdom Protista as "the kingdom of primitive forms". Originally these also included prokaryotes, b ...
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Eumetazoans
Eumetazoa (), also known as diploblasts, Epitheliozoa, or Histozoa, are a proposed basal animal clade as a sister group of the Porifera (sponges). The basal eumetazoan clades are the Ctenophora and the ParaHoxozoa. Placozoa is now also seen as a eumetazoan in the ParaHoxozoa. Several other extinct or obscure life forms, such as ''Iotuba'' and ''Thectardis'', appear to have emerged in the group. Characteristics of eumetazoans include true tissues organized into germ layers, the presence of neurons and muscles, and an embryo that goes through a gastrula stage. Some phylogenists once speculated the sponges and eumetazoans evolved separately from different single-celled organisms, which would have meant that the animal kingdom does not form a clade (a complete grouping of all organisms descended from a common ancestor). However, genetic studies and some morphological characteristics, like the common presence of choanocytes, now unanimously support a common origin. Traditionally, e ...
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Monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic groups are typically characterised by shared derived characteristics ( synapomorphies), which distinguish organisms in the clade from other organisms. An equivalent term is holophyly. The word "mono-phyly" means "one-tribe" in Greek. Monophyly is contrasted with paraphyly and polyphyly as shown in the second diagram. A ''paraphyletic group'' consists of all of the descendants of a common ancestor minus one or more monophyletic groups. A '' polyphyletic group'' is characterized by convergent features or habits of scientific interest (for example, night-active primates, fruit trees, aquatic insects). The features by which a polyphyletic group is differentiated from others are not inherited from a common ancestor. These definitions have tak ...
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Calcareous Sponge
The calcareous sponges of class Calcarea are members of the animal phylum Porifera, the cellular sponges. They are characterized by spicules made of calcium carbonate in the form of calcite or aragonite. While the spicules in most species have three points, in some species they have either two or four points. Biology All sponges in this class are strictly marine, and, while they are distributed worldwide, most are found in shallow tropical waters. Like nearly all other sponges, they are sedentary filter feeders. All three sponge body plans are represented within class Calcarea : asconoid, syconoid, and leuconoid. Typically, calcareous sponges are small, measuring less than in height, and drab in colour. However, a few brightly coloured species are also known. Calcareous sponges vary from radially symmetrical vase-shaped body types to colonies made up of a meshwork of thin tubes, or irregular massive forms. The skeleton has either a mesh or honeycomb structure. Classifica ...
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Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms and coined many terms in biology, including ''ecology'', '' phylum'', ''phylogeny'', and ''Protista.'' Haeckel promoted and popularised Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the influential but no longer widely held recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny") claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarises its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny. The published artwork of Haeckel includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures, collected in his ''Kunstformen der Natur'' ("Art Forms of Nature"), a book which would go on to influence the Art Nouveau artistic mo ...
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Sessility (motility)
Sessility is the biological property of an organism describing its lack of a means of self-locomotion. Sessile organisms for which natural ''motility'' is absent are normally immobile. This is distinct from the botanical concept of sessility, which refers to an organism or biological structure attached directly by its base without a stalk. Sessile organisms can move via external forces (such as water currents), but are usually permanently attached to something. Organisms such as corals lay down their own substrate from which they grow. Other sessile organisms grow from a solid such as a rock, dead tree trunk, or a man-made object such as a buoy or ship's hull. Mobility Sessile animals typically have a motile phase in their development. Sponges have a motile larval stage and become sessile at maturity. Conversely, many jellyfish develop as sessile polyps early in their life cycle. In the case of the cochineal, it is in the nymph stage (also called the crawler stage) that the ...
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Paedomorphosis
Neoteny (), also called juvenilization,Montagu, A. (1989). Growing Young. Bergin & Garvey: CT. is the delaying or slowing of the physiological, or somatic, development of an organism, typically an animal. Neoteny is found in modern humans compared to other primates. In progenesis or paedogenesis, sexual development is accelerated. Both neoteny and progenesis result in paedomorphism (as having the form typical of children) or paedomorphosis (changing towards forms typical of children), a type of heterochrony. It is the retention in adults of traits previously seen only in the young. Such retention is important in evolutionary biology, domestication and evolutionary developmental biology. Some authors define paedomorphism as the retention of larval traits, as seen in salamanders.Schell, S. C. ''Handbook of Trematodes of North America North of Mexico'', 1985, pg. 22 History and etymology The origins of the concept of neoteny have been traced to the Bible (as argued by Ashley Montag ...
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Placozoa
The Placozoa are a basal form of marine free-living (non-parasitic) multicellular organism. They are the simplest in structure of all animals. Three genera have been found: the classical ''Trichoplax adhaerens'', ''Hoilungia hongkongensis'', and ''Polyplacotoma mediterranea'', where the last appears most basal. The last two have been found only since 2017. Although the Placozoa were first discovered in 1883 by the German zoologist Franz Eilhard Schulze (1840–1921) and since the 1970s more systematically analyzed by the German protozoologist Karl Gottlieb Grell (1912–1994), a common name does not yet exist for the taxon; the scientific name means "flat animals". Biology ''Trichoplax'' is a small, flattened, animal around across. An amorphous multi-celled body, analogous to a single-celled ''Amoeba'', it has no regular outline, although the lower surface is somewhat concave, and the upper surface is always flattened. The body consists of an outer layer of simple epithelium ...
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Cnidaria
Cnidaria () is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in freshwater and marine environments, predominantly the latter. Their distinguishing feature is cnidocytes, specialized cells that they use mainly for capturing prey. Their bodies consist of mesoglea, a non-living jelly-like substance, sandwiched between two layers of epithelium that are mostly one cell thick. Cnidarians mostly have two basic body forms: swimming medusae and sessile polyps, both of which are radially symmetrical with mouths surrounded by tentacles that bear cnidocytes. Both forms have a single orifice and body cavity that are used for digestion and respiration. Many cnidarian species produce colonies that are single organisms composed of medusa-like or polyp-like zooids, or both (hence they are trimorphic). Cnidarians' activities are coordinated by a decentralized nerve net and simple receptors. Several free-swimming species of Cubozoa and Scyphozo ...
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